The Sasuke Fan Club
by jacobk
Summary: At the age of six, Ino was the best friend Sakura could imagine. As they grow up, will the challenges they go through bring them closer together or drive them apart?
1. Chapter 1

AN: Hey everybody, fair warning: this one gets a bit dark. As usual, I appreciate any and all reviews.

AN2: You guys trust me not to use stupid cliches in stupid ways, right? If you run into something that bugs you, just bear with it a little bit and I think you'll see a decent payoff.

ooOoo

I always had trouble sleeping when I was a kid. It's actually not unheard of for a six year old to suffer from insomnia, not in a place like Konoha where military service starts young and military training starts even younger. In my case, the problem wasn't anything to do with the training-rather, the problem lay with my fellow trainees.

I was a natural target for bullies at that age. I was a quiet kid, and preferred the company of my books to the company of my classmates. My unusually colored pink hair and large forehead provided convenient hooks for my tormentors. It only took a week or so from the time the academy began for somebody to coin the term "billboard brow," after which my given name was only ever used by my instructors.

They didn't escalate to physical abuse until a month after school started, when I made the mistake of upstaging Ami Uzuki in class. I didn't really mean to do it, but I had a hard time staying quiet when the instructor asked an easy question. Of course, Ami didn't accept that excuse, and I was sporting a black eye before afternoon classes started.

That seemed to open the floodgates, and there soon developed a group of girls that couldn't hold a candle to me in the classroom, but who were able and willing to demonstrate their practical superiority over me in the ninja arts at every opportunity. My days at the academy became a steady drumbeat of taunting and beatings, only interrupted by class sessions.

After school I would escape to the library. At first I hoped to find some kind of super powerful technique that would let me fight off the bullies, but that kind of information wasn't shared with the general public. The library contained some helpful reference materials, but nothing of any immediate practical use. Still, the supervising chuunin would prevent any fights from breaking out, and I was happy to have a refuge to do my homework and escape into fictional ninja adventures like the Legend of the Gutsy Shinobi. It was always with a heavy heart that I left the library to head home for dinner and, all too soon, bed time.

When falling asleep would just bring me closer to the next day's torment, is in it any wonder that I would stay awake late into the night? Falling asleep offered little respite in any event, as my dreams were filled with images of bullying from the past and anticipated bullying in the future.

After a few weeks of sleepless nights, the waking world started to take on a dreamlike quality. Days and nights blurred together, and at any given moment I had a hard time distinguishing between a beating Ami was currently administering and the dream in which I relived it. Meeting Ino stands out as the most real memory that I have from that time.

Ami and her friends Fuki and Kasumi had me surrounded in an open field. We were in the middle of a class on flower arranging, but the instructor had moved on to teach another group and wasn't paying any attention to us. I knew from experience that tattling was futile-Ami would be the picture of innocence by the time the teacher arrived, and nobody would do anything when it was just my word against hers. Besides, the Academy generally believed in letting us future ninja work things out for ourselves. In any event, Ami had shoved me down to the ground, and was stepping forward to dish out more punishment when a flower hit her forehead, stem first.

Ami stopped, more out of surprise than anything else, and I saw a blonde girl step between us and address my tormenter.

"Why don't you try picking on somebody else for once?" She asked, her voice clear and confident. "Or try picking a fight that isn't three on one?"

"Why you-" Ami began, throwing a punch at my protector. Ami was cut off when the blonde dodged to the side and trapped her arm. I recognized the hold as part of the taijutsu forms we were being taught, but I never would have been confident enough to try it in an actual fight.

"Ha! Not so confident when somebody fights back, are you?" The blonde girl taunted. Fuki tried to move in and save Ami, but stopped when Ami let out a pained yelp. "If you try to gang up on me, I can break her arm. Do you think I won't do it?"

Her voice, which had started out clear and cheerful, was now low and menacing. I felt a shiver down my spine at her words, even though she had only acted so far to protect me. Fuki and Kasumi ran off, presumably to find a teacher. The blonde released Ami, shoving her down to the ground, and I wasn't surprised when Ami scrambled away as quickly as she could. I was surprised when my protector turned to face me, as none of the dangerous anger that had colored her voice was apparent on her face.

"Hi there!" She said, holding out her hand. "I'm Ino. Want to be friends?"

I nodded my agreement as I accepted her hand up. I was still too shy to look her in the eyes, instead focusing my eyes on the ground and hiding behind my hair.

"Hey, you shouldn't hide like that," Ino said, pushing my bangs back from my face. "You have a cute face, you should show it off."

I smiled back at her as I started to hope that things were going to change for me. That night, I slept like a baby.

ooOoo

Ino was everything I wanted to be: pretty, popular, and confident in her abilities as a ninja. I was a little worried at first that she might be trying to build me up so that she could cut me down as some kind of cruel prank, but those fears soon fell by the wayside. She never really talked me up to her friends, but she never put me down either, instead helping me to become more confident so I could make friends of my own.

We were nearly inseperable after school ended. I would follow Ino out to the training grounds and watch her work out. She trained with an intensity that was almost frightening, showing a single minded commitment at improving that I could only admire. I would train a little on my own, but often just watching her train was such an intense experience that I felt drained afterwards.

In turn, Ino joined me in the library when she was done with her physical training. She was as disappointed as I was at the lack of an awesome technique depository, but she refused to give up on the idea like I had. While I did my academy homework and relaxed with recreational reading, she would try to cross reference wildly varying reference materials in an attempt to put together some kind of secret technique. Of course, even a remarkable six year old like Ino didn't enjoy any success cobbling a technique together from scratch.

At the time that we met, Ino and I actually had similar middling to low rankings in the class taijutsu ladder, but that didn't last. Ino's training showed up in the results as she began a steady climb up the ladder until, two years after we first met, only a few of the boys stood above her. Even they would never take her lightly in a spar-Ino fought with complete dedication and absolute confidence, and nobody walked away from a fight with her unmarked. Being her friend, I couldn't help but improve somewhat in taijutsu, but I still lagged behind her in the rankings. I didn't mind, though, as I maintained my standing as tops in the academic rankings.

Ino introduced me to many social customs, including the appreciation of boys. When we were nine we founded the Sasuke Fan Club, dedicated to the admiration and emulation of our class's top ninja. Ino was president, and wore a red and black armband in honor of the Uchiha clan's bloodline, the mighty Sharingan. I was the club treasurer and secretary and, to show my support, changed out my red hair ribbon for a ribbon of alternating red and black stripes.

Club meetings were largely devoted to ninja training. As far as we knew, prowess in the ninja arts was the only thing Sasuke was interested in, so we were determined to be the best kunoichi that we could be. It was at our celebration of our first anniversery as a club that Ino showed me her first original technique.

"Hey, check this out!" Ino called out, before punching a log. She left a good sized dent, and then jogged across the clearing to stand next to me. "That's about as hard as I can hit, right?"

"Right," I agreed. I could put nearly as much of a dent in the log, although my punches would not be delivered with the same skill. I was shocked out of my thoughts when Ino disappeared in a blur, reappearing with a loud crack as she put her fist most of the way through the log.

"Ha!" She shouted. "It works!"

"What the hell?" I asked, perplexed. "How is that possible?"

After taking a few seconds to work her fist free of the training log, Ino walked over to me and rolled up her captain's arm band. Underneath I could see a tattoo in a strange, abstract design.

"This seal," Ino explained, "allows for a burst of great speed and strength. Unfortunately it will be several hours before it can be used again."

"And how did you get ahold of a seal like that?" I asked.

"I made it." Ino said, smiling smugly at my obvious disbelief. "A bunch of those books in the library talk about different aspects of seal design, it wasn't that hard to put the bits and pieces together into something useful."

"No way." I said, shaking my head. "Absolutely no way does an academy student invent a brand new seal just like that."

"Well..." Ino said, putting her finger to her chin. "I may have had to conduct some animal experiments before I arrived at the final design."

"What?" I asked.

"Oh, it was just some stray cats that nobody is going to miss." Ino said, waving her hand dismissively. "I didn't put the seal on myself until I had a few successes under my belt. So, do you want one for yourself?"

"No way!" I exclaimed. "It's pure luck you didn't kill yourself with that thing, I don't want you to burn out my chakra coils or something."

"Suit yourself." Ino said, shrugging. "Just one more advantage for me in the fight for Sasuke's heart."

"Please," I replied, "Sasuke doesn't need to date some thug for her battlefield prowess. He needs a theoretical genius like me to back him up in the areas where he hasn't focused."

ooOoo

Neither one of us managed to win Sasuke's heart by the time graduation rolled around. I was pretty pleased when I graduated as the top kunoichi in the class-the instructors all said that my taijutsu needed to be more consistent, but my academic performance was head and shoulders above the competition. Ino passed too, of course, and the real battle would be joined the next day, when our teams were announced.

When our sensei said that I would be on Sasuke's team, I was so happy that I spaced out throughout the remainder of his speech, focusing on my future with Sasuke instead of the construction of the other teams. I came out of my little daydream to see that all of the other teams had left, and Ino and Naruto were both in the room with Sasuke and me.

"Hey, what are you doing here?" I asked, indignant.

"What? I'm on this team too." Naruto replied.

"Yeah, didn't you hear?" Ino asked. "Or were you just so excited to be on the same team as Sasuke that you stopped paying attention to your environment? Violating Shinobi Rule Eight, not a good way to start your career."

"Whatever." I replied. "Just stay out of my way while I win Sasuke's heart."

"Not likely." Ino said, sticking her tongue out at me.

Sasuke just grunted, not wanting to be drawn into our argument.

Figuring that our new commander wasn't going to show up any time soon, I pulled out a book and settled down to read, ignoring Ino's comments about how I was never going to impress Sasuke by being a bookworm. Sasuke was content to stare holes in the wall, while Naruto was a little stir crazy, pacing around the classroom like a caged animal. After an hour had passed, Naruto expressed his displeasure with the delay by setting an eraser across the to of the door, poised to fall on the next person to walk in.

I was about to express my skepticism that a jounin would ever be caught by such a simple prank when the door opened, and the eraser fell onto the head of our instructor. He ignored the chalk dust as he surveyed the room with his one visible eye, his expression remaining placid throughout.

"My first impression is... disappointment." With that statement, he turned and walked out of the room. We all scrambled to follow as he led us out of the room. He didn't seem inclined to say anything, and we all followed his lead and kept silent. Finally he led us out onto the roof, and turned to watch us with his single visible eye.

"Now, I'd like you all to tell us a little about yourselves." He said.

"Like what?" I asked.

"You know, the usual. Your favorite thing, what you hate most. Dreams, ambitions, hobbies, things like that." He answered, spreading his arms as if to invite a reply. None of us jumped in to say anything, and I took the opportunity to examine our instructor. He was dressed in fairly nondescript clothing, topped off with a standard Konoha combat vest. The most distinctive thing about him was the mask that covered the bottom half of his face, making his expressions difficult to read. He had a striking shock of grey hair, held back by his forehead protector, which he wore slanted down across his face to cover his left eye.

After a moment, Naruto broke the silence. "Help us out here, sensei. You go first. Show us how it's done."

"Me?" He asked. "My name is Kakashi Hatake. I'm the kind of herson who doesn't feel like talking about his likes and dislikes. My dreams are none of your business... but anyway, I have lots of hobbies."

"Hey, he said a lot," I said, thinking out loud. "But all we really learned was his name."

"Yeah, this is stupid!" Ino said, nearly shouting in her anger. "I'm not going to tell you anything if you aren't going to tell us anything."

"Tsch," Kakashi said, his indifferent body posture remaining unchanged. "Let's start with you on the right."

As Naruto launched into a paen to ramen-and to his dream of becoming Hokage-I took a second look at our sensei. I expected that a senior ninja would be a lot more serious. Kakashi didn't even really carry himself like a ninja, instead standing in a relaxed slouch couldn't be farther from a decent combat stance. On the other hand, if he really was an elite ninja, he could be so strong that the normal shinobi rules didn't apply to him. He certainly didn't seem inclined to obey the rule about punctuality.

Sasuke was the next to introduce himself, explaining that his only dream was to kill a single man. I was a little taken aback by that-everybody knew that Sasuke had lost his family in some kind of tragic event, but he seemed to be saying that it was all caused by a single person. For one person to kill the Uchiha, he had to be monstrously strong. If catching that person was his goal, that certainly helped explain Sasuke's focus on his training. That drive was part of what made Sasuke so attractive, of course, and I was heartened to hear that part of his dream was to rebuild his clan... now I just have to worry about beating out Ino for his attention.

I stammered my way through my introduction. I was embarassed to be so open about my crush on Sasuke, but I couldn't back down, not with Ino right there. When I was done, Kakashi dropped a bombshell: we would have to take another test, this one with a 66% failure rate, before we could count ourselves as ninja.

He told us not to eat breakfast the next morning, but I had a hard time even choking down some food for dinner with such an alarming task ahead of me.

ooOoo

I was the first to arrive to our meeting place the next morning. Well, technically Ino arrived at the same time, but I sat down in front of the training posts before she did. We both got there fifteen minutes before the designated time, and we both had brought some reading material in case our sensei was late again. I had brought the publicly available information on Kakashi that I had been able to dig up, hoping that I could find a weakness on review that hadn't jumped out at me yesterday. As I started flipping through the pages, I saw that Ino was looking over some kind of technique scroll, although she kept it angled away so I couldn't see exactly what it was.

Naruto and Sasuke arrived minutes apart, right around the appointed meeting time. Our teacher didn't show up until three hours later.

"You're late!" We all said in unison, our first real moment of team togetherness. Kakashi didn't respond as he set an alarm clock down on one of the training stumps.

"I've set this alarm clock to go off at noon." He said. I was about to say something about how he could have used the alarm clock earlier in the day when he continued. "I have here two small bells. Your challenge is to steal them from me before the timer sounds."

Kakashi held up a pair of bells for our examination. They were not much larger than the tip of his thumb, and were attached to short pieces of string. He tied the bells to his belt before he continued.

"Anyone who fails, doesn't get any lunch." He explained. "Instead, you will be tied to that tree stump, so I can eat your lunch in front of you."

Beside me, Naruto groaned as his stomach let out a well-timed rumble. I could feel a sympathetic gurgle starting up in my gut, but I held it down with sheer force of will. It wouldn't do to look unladylike in front of Sasuke.

"All you need is just one bell apiece," Kakashi continued, "but since there aren't enough to go around, one of you is definitely headed for the stump. Whoever that is will be the first of you to fail. One of you is on your way back to school... and disgrace."

Kakashi paused a moment to let that sink in. "Attack as though you mean to kill or you'll never stand a chance."

"But that's so dangerous..." I said, half to myself. In the academy we were never allowed to use live weapons, or use potentially lethal moves. For our instructor to invite that kind of thing, he must be really strong.

"You couldn't even dodge an eraser!" Naruto called out, ably demonstrating how two genin could look at the same statement and come to two totally different conclusions. "You're gonna get yourself killed!"

"Only the weak speak loudly." Kakashi said, unruffled. "Now let's forget the dunce, and we'll start on my signal."

That was too much for Naruto, and with a growl he drew a kunai and charged. It was an impressive effort, and looked like it might succeed, as Kakashi didn't react at all. Just before Naruto was in striking range, there was a blur of motion, and Naruto was face-first on the ground with his own kunai held against the back of his head.

"Not so fast. I didn't say 'go.'" Kakashi said, still calm. "But at least you struck to kill... it seems you've begun to respect me."

With that, Kakashi released Naruto and gave the signal to start. I immediately darted for a hiding place in the brush surrounding the clearing with Ino by my side. Sasuke disappeared somewhere, and Naruto stayed in the clearing where he challenged our sensei directly.

Naruto showed some impressive skill-including a solid clone technique that must have been some kind of clan secret-but the ending was a foregone conclusion. Kakashi didn't even have to use both hands to make a fool out of him. When Naruto was strung up in the tree by a simple rope trap, I tugged on Ino's sleeve and we withdrew into the forest to find Sasuke.

Sasuke wasn't the rookie of the year for nothing, though, and he proved surprisingly difficult to find. I don't know how long we were wandering around in the forest before I finally heard Sasuke's voice calling out for me. Something about it sounded off, but I didn't realize what it was until I rounded the last tree that separated us.

"Please... help me." He gasped out, voice raw in a way I had never heard before. He staggered forward a few more steps, and then collapsed to his knees. It was amazing that he had been on his feet to begin with, as shuriken and kunai peppered every limb, and a fair few were pinned in his chest and back.

For all that, it was the kunai embedded in his throat that held my attention, and as I watched his lifeblood seep from his body I felt consciousness escape me.

ooOoo

I woke in the clearing where our team had originally met. I rubbed my aching head, lamenting the physical side effects that came along with what must have been a high-level genjutsu. A bento box was placed next to me, and a glance to my right showed Sasuke with his own lunch. Naruto was tied to the post on the other side of me, trying to look defiant despite the obvious hunger in his eyes. Kakashi stood in front of us, lazy as ever, although he looked a little disappointed.

"I have an announcement about this exercise." Kakashi said. "None of you need to worry about going back to the academy."

I felt my heart leap. After my pathetic performance I didn't understand how I had even earned lunch, and now he was announcing we had passed. Next to me Naruto was doing his best to jump up and down in celebration.

"Yes!" Naruto shouted. "This means we all-"

"Are hopeless." Kakashi interrupted. "More schooling would be pointless. None of you will ever be shinobi. Not one of you has what it takes."

"Give me a break!" Naruto yelled. "So maybe none of us got one of your stupid bells. So what, we can still be great ninja."

"Really, when your every action has been an insult to every real ninja?" Kakashi said, glaring at us. "Did you miss the entire point of this exercise?"

"It had a point?" Naruto asked.

"Of course. And that point determines whether or not you would succeed." Kakashi replied.

"But..." I said, "you didn't tell us what it is."

"I don't believe this." Kakashi said, shaking his head. "The point is teamwork. If you had come at me together you might have been able to take the bells."

"Wait a minute!" I replied, "Even if we'd worked together, there weren't enough bells to go around. You preach teamwork, but you played us off against each other!"

"Of course." Kakashi said. "This test was designed to cause dissension in your ranks. The situation was set up to reveal which of you would set aside your own individual interests and propose to the others that you work together for the good of all.

"Instead of which, you all acted as individuals. No matter what your individual strength," Kakashi continued, pausing to stare at Sasuke and me, "making a play as an individual is bad for the team and exposes your comrades to unnecessary danger."

Kakashi turned away from us for a moment, and seemed to be lost in thought. I thought he might be looking at the stone marker on the other side of the training ground, but I couldn't tell from where I was sitting. After a moment he shook his head and turned back to us.

"I'm giving you all one last chance. One that will be far more difficult than our last little game with the bells." He said. "If you're prepared to continue, you may eat one of the bento boxes. But no sharing with Naruto, he goes hungry."

"What? Why?" I asked. The instruction certainly seemed contrary to his big speech on teamwork.

"He brought it on himself when he tried to sneak lunch for himself." Kakashi said. "If one of you feeds him, you fail the test right here. My word is law, you understand."

With that, he disappeared in a puff of smoke. Naruto tried to play off his hunger, but he was obviously suffering. Going directly at Kakashi like he had must have taken a lot out of him. I was trying to decide what to do when Sasuke held out his lunch to Naruto.

"What are you doing?" Naruto asked, obviously surprised at the gesture of kindness from Sasuke.

"Kakashi is probably miles away by now, and we'll all need our strength if we're going to work together to get those bells." Sasuke said. "You're no good to me if you're just going to be a liability."

"He's right, forehead." Ino said, walking across the clearing toward us. "We're going to need all the help we can get to get a bell, and Naruto is no good to us how he is."

I chewed my lip for a moment, still worried about the potential fallout, before holding out my lunch for Naruto. He smiled at me and was just taking his first bite when there was another puff of smoke and all the light in the clearing seemed to go out.

"You guys..." Kakashi said, appearing behind us with an ominous look on his face. He didn't say anything for a moment, and suddenly the atmosphere lightened. "Pass!"

"What?" I asked. "But we broke your rule."

"You have just taken a giant step forward. Up until now, all any of you have done is listen unquestioningly to everything I say. A true shinobi seeks for the hidden meanings within the hidden meanings." Kakashi explained. "In a ninja's world, those who violate the rules and fail to follow orders are lower than garbage. However, those who do not care for and support their fellows are lower than that."

We all paused to consider that bit of wisdom before the import of the rest of his statement hit us. Naruto started jumping up and down again like an idiot, celebrating our passage. Ino and I were more restrained, merely sharing a satisfied smile. Sasuke barely reacted at all.

"That's all for today, team seven." Kakashi said. "Your duties will commence tomorrow!"

ooOoo

Our duties turned out to be largely comprised of household chores. Babysitting for important village figures, digging weeds out of personal gardens, fetching groceries for the elderly... the most excitement we had was catching a runaway cat.

I didn't mind the monotonous duties too much. Ino was good company, even if the boys on the team didn't seem to appreciate her sense of humor. Chatting with her helped the time go faster, and we still trained on our own when the team wasn't on a mission.

I could see that Naruto was not enjoying the basic missions like I was, and it was no surprise when he threw a temper tantrum in the mission assignment room. What was a surprise was when the Hokage responded by personally assigning us a C-rank mission. It was even an escort mission, which sounded pretty cool. I didn't think ninja got rewarded for acting up like Naruto had, and my intuitions proved correct when we met the client.

Tazuna, the self-styled "greatest bridge builder in the world," was one of the most annoying people I'd ever met-and I worked with Naruto every day. Our mission assignment meeting was taking place in the early afternoon, and Tazuna already smelled strongly enough of sake that I had noticed it before he even walked in the door. He managed to insult pretty much our entire team within a minute of meeting us, and I was a little disappointed when Kakashi restrained Naruto from assaulting him.

Still, Tazuna was a client, and even an annoying escort mission would get us out of the village. After packing for a long journey, our team met the following morning to set out. I couldn't help feeling a little nervous at taking on my first official ninja duties outside the walls of Konoha.

Evidently Tazuna was feeling a little nervous too. At first he seemed content to drown his concerns in sake, but after a few days on the trail he was openly questioning our ability to keep him safe. Kakashi was explaining for the third time that day that yes, we were all trained ninja, and yes, Kakashi was an elite who could keep us all safe by himself, when the attack happened.

One minute Kakashi was talking, and the next there was a horrible tearing sound and an explosion of gore. A bloody chain stretched across the area where our teacher had been, each end held by a masked man. Our two opponents each wore some kind of rebreather on their face, and across their foreheads was a forehead protector from the Hidden Mist, with a line scratched through the symbol. So, we were facing missing nin.

"One down." One of them said, before the other continued. "And one to go."

With that, they charged forward, aiming to take out Tazuna. I stood, frozen, while around me my teammates burst into action. Sasuke leapt towards one of the missing nin, while Ino shot past me in a blur towards the other. I saw Ino's opponent ready himself for her charge when she disappeared in a burst of speed, reappearing with a kunai thrust through his throat.

Ino's momentum carried the two of them to the ground, and she pulled her kunai out of his throat and began repeatedly stabbing him in the face. She was shouting something, but I couldn't make it out exactly. I was shocked into immobility as I watched the blood fountain out of the missing nin, soaking Ino's arms and splashing onto her face. She didn't stop until a familiar voice spoke up from behind her.

"I think that one's not going to be any more trouble." Kakashi said.

"Sensei!" Ino exclaimed, whirling about to confirm what she had heard. "But, they killed you?"

"A simple replacement technique." Kakashi said, gesturing towards the spot where he had been "killed." A mangled log stood in his place. "I apologize for the deception, but I had to know whether they were after me, or our client."

Kakashi turned and fixed a hard gaze on Tazuna. "I think it's time we had a talk."

ooOoo

Learning that an incredibly wealthy man wanted Tazuna dead and was willing to hire missing nin to accomplish the task was just the icing on the cake. We all agreed to continue with the mission, of course, but our paranoia was ramped up to another level. Fortunately, there were no further incidents that day.

When we made camp, Kakashi announced that we would be keeping double watches, just to be safe. It was a sign of how worried we all were that nobody complained. I walked away from the others to wash up before dinner, and sensei followed me.

"Look," he said, scratching the back of his head, "I'm really not the best at giving advice on stuff like this, but I know your first deadly encounter can be difficult."

I looked down in shame. I had completely frozen up and left it to my teammates to protect me. I couldn't keep doing that, I couldn't be dead weight. "I understand, sensei. I'll do better next time."

"That's not-" he said, then sighed. "Just, if you need somebody to talk to, let me know, ok?"

I nodded, although I wasn't quite sure what he was talking about, and he seemed to be satisfied.

I was still mulling over our conversation the next day while we travelled. I was distracted from my thoughts when I tripped and fell, and then grateful for the momentary bout of clumsiness when a giant sword flew over my head. Kakashi got everybody else down quickly enough to avoid the sword, but I knew that would hardly be the end of this encounter.

Sure enough, when I turned to see where the sword wound up, it was stuck into a tree with a man standing on top of it. Even from a distance, I could tell that he was on a whole different level from the two we had fought earlier. There was an aura of malevolence around him that promised a swift and certain death, and I had to wonder if Kakashi was up to the task of keeping us all alive.

I knew I wouldn't be able to do anything against a monster like that. 


	2. Chapter 2

AN: The plot thickens. As usual, any and all reviews are appreciated.

ooOoo

Kakashi identified our new opponent as Momoichi Zabuza, the demon of the mist. In a way it was comforting. Putting a name to our enemy reassured me that we were not facing some sort of primal force of evil, but just a man like any other. Of course, it was decidedly less comforting when Kakashi told us more about him: the graduating student who slaughtered his entire class, the combat monster who went toe to toe with a Kage and lived to walk away from the fight.

Kakashi knew all of those things about our opponent, and still stayed as flip as ever as they engaged in some pre-battle banter. Sometimes my sensei can be pretty cool.

Things quickly went south once the battle was joined in earnest. Zabuza opened by summoning a thick mist that made it impossible to see beyond the end of my nose. A logical counter when facing a master of the Sharingan, but it was terrifying to a genin like me. The mist played tricks on our ears too, making it seem like Zabuza's voice was coming from every direction as he lovingly described just how he was going to kill us all.

I stayed still and did my best to pretend that I didn't exist. I'd like to say I was trying to avoid detection and set up a counter-attack, but the truth is that I was frozen in fear.

Ino gave my hand a quick squeeze before she vanished off into the mist. I wanted to cling to the comfort of her hand, but she was right to leave. We were genin now, it was time to start standing on our own two feet. Still, I couldn't bring myself to do much more than pray for her safety.

The battle between the two jounin was raging all around us that was no less frightening for the confusion it engendered in me. Deception was laid on top of misdirection as clones were destroyed all around us, the sound of combat echoing crazily through the mist. It felt like the fight lasted for hours, but it couldn't have been more than a few minutes before the mist cleared and my heart sank.

Zabuza was standing by the lake, one hand maintaining a globe of water that held Kakashi prisoner. I waited for him to disappear, to reveal that this was just another clone, but he did nothing of the sort. Instead, he began flashing us hand signs to order a retreat, while Zabuza began taunting us as kids who were unworthy of our forehead protectors.

I was debating whether to follow Kakashi's orders-on the one hand, it seemed to go against the whole idea of teamwork, but on the other hand I could hardly expect to overcome an opponent who had defeated Kakashi-when Ino responded to Zabuza's taunting with a kunai. He swayed to the side to let it pass by, then swung his sword around to protect himself when the exploding tag attached to the hilt detonated.

"I like a girl who plays with explosives," Zabuza said, fixing his gaze on Ino. "But your little tricks won't be enough to beat me."

"I always say," Ino said, flashing a bright smile as she readied her follow up attack, "Any problem that can't be solved with explosions can usually be solved with more explosions."

With that, she threw a wave of kunai into the air. I counted five, each one trailing at least two explosive tags. I had only a moment to wonder why Ino was carrying around such firepower before the attack struck home.

Of course, a ninja of Zabuza's caliber would hardly be caught flat footed by something like that. His one free hand had flashed through a series of hand seals in the blink of an eye before slamming down into the water, raising a liquid wall that absorbed the oncoming kunai. A moment later the wall exploded into mist as the tags went off.

Zabuza was unharmed, but had to react quickly to a new attack from Naruto and Sasuke. He deflected the first windmill shuriken before dodging out of the way of the second. When the shuriken turned out to be Naruto hiding under a henge Zabuza was able to catch his attack, but he hardly had time to gloat before he realized he had been forced to use the hand that had been maintaining sensei's prison.

From the moment the renewed battle began, Kakashi had Zabuza on the ropes. The only reason he didn't get to add Zabuza to his list of famous bounties collected was the interruption by a Mist hunter nin who killed Zabuza from ambush.

The hunter nin had the gall to thank us for our help before disappearing with Zabuza's body. Ino started grumbling about how it would have been nice if the hunter had jumped in sooner, while Naruto and Sasuke were put out that such a young shinobi was able to take down an A-rank opponent. We soon had larger things to worry about, though, as sensei passed out from chakra exhaustion.

ooOoo

We managed to make it to Tazuna's house without any further incident, and sensei awoke from his coma shortly after dinner. That was when he gave us the bad news: the hunter nin was a fake, and we were probably going to have to face Zabuza again in a week.

"What?" Ino asked, shocked. "You seriously just figured that out now?"

"Well," Kakashi replied, gesturing down at himself. "I wasn't exactly ready for another fight to the death with a fresh opponent."

He went on to explain that the good news was that we could use the week to train. He had a lesson that would help make us stronger in a short period of time. Ino grumbled a bit about how there were a lot of weeks back in Konoha where we could have used that kind of training, but he pretended not to hear her as he settled back in to sleep.

The next morning we were all eager to see what kind of super-training Kakashi would be putting us through. When he showed up only half an hour late for our training session, we got even more excited.

Our enthusiasm dimmed noticeably when he told us we'd be learning to climb trees. Then sensei walked up the side of a tree like he was walking down a road, and we were all ears as he explained the technique.

It sounded pretty simple. Just channel chakra to your feet and it will stick to the tree, allowing you to defy gravity. The tricky part was making sure you had the right amount of chakra: use too little and your foot will slide right off the bark, while if you use too much you'll be blasted right off the tree.

After a brief discussion, which included an explanation of chakra for Naruto's benefit-seriously, he somehow learned to make shadow clones without knowing what chakra is-sensei told us the best way to learn was through experience. He gave us each a kunai to use to mark our progress, and suggested that we get a running start.

My first step on the tree I was using way too little chakra. My momentum allowed me to take one more step, then another. I gradually increased the chakra I was using, and by the fourth step I had a firm grip on the tree. Carefully maintaining that chakra level, I walked up to the highest branch that looked like it would make a comfortable seat and settled down to see how everybody else was doing.

Ino was right next to me on top of her tree, of course, but Naruto and Sasuke were both sprawled out on the ground. The marks they had slashed into the tree trunks were only about ten feet off the ground.

"Well, well," Kakashi said, "it looks like the boys on the team are the farthest away from becoming Hokage."

I was mortified that he would use me to embarass Sasuke like that, but it was Ino who responded.

"Why so surprised, sensei?" Ino yelled down. "Just because I'm a girl, you don't think I can be a strong ninja, is that it?"

Kakashi just gave us a wink and then disappeared in a puff of smoke. He's a pretty cool guy, but it's frustrating when he's being cool at your expense.

ooOoo

It turned out our reward for mastering tree climbing so quickly was that Kakashi brought us along to guard the bridge builders while Naruto and Sasuke worked on mastering tree climbing. It was more for moral support for the bridge builders than anything else, since we didn't expect Zabuza to be up for another round for at least a week after being put into such a near-death state.

I tried to stay quiet and professional. We had done enough tedious tasks during our D-rank drudgery that I was somewhat used to them-maybe those missions served a purpose after all-but it was tough to stand around all day and pretty much do nothing. Still, I bore it better than Ino, who spent the better part of a few hours grumbling about how sensei had the boys training hard but was content to keep his kunoichi standing around.

Sensei never replied directly to her complaints, but he did mention when he dismissed us that running up and down a tree trunk to near the point of exhaustion was a great way to increase chakra capacity. I guess it was nice that he cared about our development, but it was hard to feel particularly grateful when Ino insisted that we through a grueling set of exercises before dinner.

Our days soon settled in to a routine. We'd get up and do a little bit of tree climbing to get warmed up. I did my work out of sight of the boys, since I didn't want to rub my superiority in this area in their faces. Ino did it right next to them while they were still marking their progress, and also indulged in a little bit of taunting for their failure to master the exercise. When I asked her about it, she said she wanted to motivate her teammates to learn quicker. She also admitted that she thought Sasuke would want a girl who pushed him to greater heights as a ninja. I think Sasuke would like somebody a little more supportive, myself.

Once our morning exercises were over it was time to head off to the bridge. It was really starting to come together as the workers labored under our watchful eyes. Then, after a full day of standing around doing nothing, Ino and I would run up and down the trees in Tazuna's front yard until we couldn't generate enough chakra to stick to them any more. We were able to last a little longer as the week went on, although I'm not sure if that was due to an increase in chakra capacity or if we were just getting more efficient at tree walking.

The morning of the day one week after our encounter with Zabuza was different. For one thing, Sasuke had mastered tree-walking the night before, so he would be joining us at the bridge. Naruto had mastered the exercise as well, but in the process had overtrained himself to the point that he was still passed out when it was time for us to go. Ino was pretty upset that Naruto would make himself unavailable on today of all days, but I couldn't really fault his whole-hearted enthusiasm for self-improvement.

Any questions we had as to whether Zabuza had managed to recover were answered when we arrived at the bridge to see the mangled bodies of Tazuna's workers. Zabuza appeared out of the mist like a ghost and launched into another series of boasts and taunts. He talked a lot for a master of silent killing. I guess sensei just brings that out in people.

I only kept half an ear on the byplay as I focused on doing my job: along with Ino, I kept myself between Tazuna and our opponents and kept an eye out for sneak attacks. Kakashi suspected that Zabuza's pride would lead him to attempt to overcome the famed Copy Nin in open battle, but it never hurts to keep an eye out for underhanded tactics when you're up against a skilled ninja.

As we had planned, Kakashi engaged Zabuza in battle while Sasuke took on his apprentice. I had almost found a good opening to jump in and help Sasuke out when he and his opponent disappeared under a dome of ice. I didn't want to jump into a battlefield blind-I was as likely to harm Sasuke as help him-so I stayed back to protect Tazuna.

It was a frustrating battle. Neither of us could contribute to sensei's fight against Zabuza. Even Ino's remaining explosive tags were useless against a combatant who was moving too quickly for us to really see, let alone hit with a kunai. Meanwhile, we couldn't really tell what was going on in Sasuke's fight, but the silence coming from the dome of ice was ominous.

It was at that point that Naruto came into view, hollering with his usual reckless enthusiasm. I had never been as happy to see him as I was at that moment. He could leave clones to watch Tazuna and together the two of us could figure out some way to get Sasuke out of the ice and into a favorable position.

Of course, Naruto ignored everything I said to him and bounded straight into the dome of ice. The ice cracked briefly to allow him inside before sealing up again into a perfect prison.

"That idiot," I said, staring after him in disbelief. "That unbelievable idiot."

"I thought you liked his 'whole-hearted enthusiasm'?" Ino said, earning herself a dirty look.

After that, there was really nothing I could do. Zabuza wasn't moving any slower, and it was certainly crowded enough under the dome that we couldn't do any good by jumping in after Naruto. Fortunately, sensei seemed to be getting the upper hand in his fight.

My attention was drawn back to the dome of ice as there was an explosion of chakra, followed shortly thereafter by an explosion of ice as the dome was shattered by the bouncing body of Zabuza's apprentice. Naruto came tearing out after her, his body surrounded by a red aura that I had never seen before. It felt kind of like chakra, but more intense, almost inhuman.

Naruto took a moment to compose himself, and the red aura vanished as he stalked over to the downed body of his opponent. I was elated by Naruto's success, but my stomach dropped as I looked back to where a body lay among the shattered pieces of ice.

Unwilling to accept what I was seeing, I raced over to Sasuke. I at least had the presence of mind to drag Tazuna along behind me so he wouldn't be exposed to the fight. All too soon, I had confirmed my fears: Sasuke was dead. My vision whited out for a moment as I processed what I was seeing, before I turned to face Sasuke's killer.

I felt tears gathering in my eyes as I stalked over to where Naruto was standing. He and his opponent were still deep in conversation. I could hear that they were talking but I couldn't make myself understand the words coming out of their mouths. She said something about how Naruto should kill her, and I looked down to see that my knuckles were white around the grip of my kunai: if Naruto didn't kill this girl soon, I was going to. None of us should have to live even another minute in the same world as Sasuke's killer.

Naruto finally steeled himself and moved in for the kill when I was still twenty feet away. At the last second, the girl deflected his kunai. She started to form a hand seal with her free hand, but stopped as a kunai seemed to sprout from the back of her neck. She reached back for it, but before she was able to do anything further the attached exploding tag went off.

"What the hell?" Naruto was staring at the headless body that had so recently been his opponent. After a moment he looked past it to see a grim-faced Ino. "Why did you do that?"

"You dilly-dallied for long enough that that bitch was about to jump Kakashi," Ino said, gesturing to where sensei had just managed to impale Zabuza with some kind of lightning technique. "It's bad enough that you got Sasuke killed. I wasn't going to stand around and let you drag sensei down too."

Ino turned and stalked away, but I stayed and watched Naruto. Every emotion he felt was blazoned across his face as he shifted from shock, to disbelief, and finally crumbled into shame and self-loathing. I felt a sharp pang of sympathy: even if Naruto had let Sasuke down, he didn't deserve to have Ino unload on him like that.

"Hey," I said, stepping forward, "Hesitating to kill somebody just like that... maybe it means you aren't the perfect ninja, but you are a good person."

"But..." Naruto trailed off, staring at me in confusion. He's a sweet guy, but he's not the sharpest kunai in the holster. "What about Sasuke?"

"You did everything you could to save him, right?" I asked, and he nodded vigorously. "Then there's nothing about it that's your fault."

I swallowed and looked over at Ino's retreating form. It was hard to push past my own pain at the loss of Sasuke, but I couldn't let our team destroy itself over this.

"The pain of failing a teammate... that's pretty much the worst thing you can feel," I said. "You shouldn't let anybody throw that in your face and rub it in, even if she is just lashing out because of her own pain."

Naruto was silent for a moment. He was looking at the ground and scratching the back of his head the way he did when he was thinking. I'm not sure how much time passed before he looked up at me with a sad smile on his face.

"I think I understand," He said. "Don't worry Sakura, it's-"

"What's going on?" A familiar voice interrupted. We both looked over and were shocked to see Sasuke walking towards us. With the senbon sticking out of his body he looked like some kind of human pincushion, but he was still making his way over under his own power.

"You're alive!" Naruto exclaimed, saying what we both were thinking. "How did you survive that final attack?"

"It wasn't me," Sasuke said, gently tracing the senbon lodged in his body. "These weren't aimed to kill."

"Isn't that sweet?" An obnoxious voice called out from the other end of the bridge. We all turned to see a crowd of thugs gathered behind a short man who could only be Gato. He looked vaguely ridiculous, showing up to a battlefield in a neatly pressed suit, but he carried himself with the sort of confidence that made him almost seem cool. "All the missing ninja out there, and I hire the one that has a problem with killing."

"At least you all saved me the trouble of killing them myself," Gato commented.

"You would betray somebody who dedicated themselves to fulfilling your mission?" Naruto asked, apparently offended on Zabuza's behalf. I personally didn't feel too sympathetic for the pair that had been trying to kill me and my team, but even so I was outraged by Gato's callousness: devotion to the mission is a shinobi's highest calling, and for a civilian to spit on that was enfuriating.

"Of course, kid. It's a lot cheaper to pay off my boys here to kill off the ninja once they're tired out than it is to pay their fee," Gato said, sneering. "It's just smart business. And I'm a smart businessman."

Further conversation was cut off as a kunai plunged into Gato's eye, killing him instantly. As his body slumped to the ground all eyes turned towards Ino. I suspected she had been aiming for his throat-she and I both tended to miss high on long throws like that one-but of course there was no way for the thugs to know that.

"Not so smart, walking out on a battlefield like that," Ino said. "We may be too tired to go another round with a guy like Zabuza, but I think we can handle some bandits just fine."

"Yeah!" Naruto shouted, standing up beside her and performing his trademark shadow clone technique, almost filling the bridge from side to side with clones.

"I guess I shouldn't let my students show me up," Kakashi commented, before filling the bridge with another rank of clones behind the Narutos. I was surprised-sensei had looked pretty tired-but a closer look showed that the shadows his clones were casting weren't quite right, and they were most likely illusions.

The group of thugs was looking pretty unenthusiastic about taking us on, and when a group of townspeople lead by Inari showed up to reclaim their village, the whole group broke as one and started heading out of town as quickly as they could.

ooOoo

I didn't get a chance to talk to Ino alone until a few days later, when we were on our journey home. The two of us were on watch duty, and I pulled her aside once we were a little ways away from camp.

"Hey," I said-softly, as ninja are notoriously light sleepers, "you were pretty harsh on Naruto, back at the bridge."

"Was I?" Ino asked, flicking her hair back over her shoulder. "I think I said what he needed to hear."

"He needed you to tear into him like that?" I asked, incredulous.

"If that what it takes to get him to be a better teammate," Ino replied. She held my gaze steadily, completely confident in her position.

"You know what I think?" I asked, a little heated. "I think you were hurting because of what happened to Sasuke, so you just wanted to make Naruto hurt too."

She flinched back at that. I felt a little bad about saying it, but I thought it was important to clear the air between us.

"Did I want to hurt Naruto?" Ino said, asking herself the question. "Maybe, a little bit."

She held up a hand to forestall any reply I might make.

"Naruto's tough, you know that. No matter how much somebody hurts him, he pops right back up ready for more," Ino said. "Because of that, he's careless. He gives enemies second and third chances, and he hesitates before moving for the kill."

Ino looked up, as though she was reading the words that were posted around the wall of the Academy classroom.

"A shinobi has the patience to wait for the right time to strike, and the resolve to strike without hesitation. Shinobi rule thirty-two," Ino recited. "Naruto needs to learn that when he breaks the rules he's not just risking himself, he's risking his teammates too."

"You really think a ninja must be ready to kill, just like that?" I asked, snapping my fingers. Ino nodded.

"This time, we ran into a missing nin who didn't want to kill us. How often can we count on that happening?" Ino asked. "The Hokage didn't make up the rules for fun, you know. It's a dangerous world, and to make our way in it we need to be dangerous people."

I watched in silence as Ino turned to walk away. I hadn't known that she could be so cold. Sometimes when you're close to a person, they can change bit by bit, and you don't notice how much they've changed until some shocking event happens. Being a ninja was changing Ino. I wondered if it was changing me, too.

ooOoo

After such a crazy mission, going back to the boredom of D-ranks was a relief. Well, for the first week or so anyway. After that we all started to get a little stir crazy, but before anybody could act out again sensei dropped another surprise on us: the chuunin exam was coming up, and he thought we were ready to take it on.

I was hesitant. I hadn't really learned any techniques beyond the basic three, and I felt like I hadn't contributed much in our one big mission. In the end, though, Ino talked me in to entering. There was no doubt that Sasuke would enter, and if I wanted to stay by his side then I would have to be prepared to walk the same path that he was.

Sensei didn't tell us until afterwards that if any member of the team had decided not to take the test, none of us would have been able to compete. I did my best to hide my sigh of relief at that news-if I had kept Sasuke out of the exams, he never would have forgiven me.

There were a few twists and turns on the way to the exam room. I guess it wouldn't be a ninja test without some mind games, but soon enough we were in the room where the first round of the exam would take place. We were a little surprised to see all of the other rookies had also entered the test, and we weren't the only ones. We were getting some angry glares from the older students, those who had presumably had to spend more time paying their dues before being allowed into the exam.

Of course, Naruto had to respond to that by yelling out a challenge for everybody in the room. It was all I could do not to hide my face in my hands as the glaring intensified dramatically. Before I could say anything to rein Naruto in I noticed that Ino had her attention fixed over his shoulder. I looked where she was looking and saw a grey-haired boy approaching us.

He gave us a little lecture about keeping our heads down around the elite young shinobi that were part of the chuunin exam. It was kind of amazing how Naruto started out listening attentively and by the end of the speech had tuned him out completely. He got all of our interest when he revealed a pack of cards he had prepared with information on all of the contestants.

"Excuse me, senpai?" Ino spoke up before he could start reading the cards. "Could you show us your card first? You seem so interesting."

She finished her question by batting her eyebrows at him in her patented cute-little-girl look. It always got us an extra scoop of ice cream on our sundaes, and it soon becamse apparent that the boy was not immune to her charm.

"Heh, I suppose you're right," the boy said, favoring her with a smile before flipping one of the cards off of the deck. "Kabuto Yakushi. Genin for five years, failed in the chuunin exam six times. My specialty is in medical techniques-my adoptive father is the head of Konoha's hospital, so I'm a pretty good support nin."

Kabuto was soon besieged by questions about other competitors, and I managed to seize Ino by the arm and drag her out of the scrum.

"What's the big idea?" I hissed, "This guys is trying to help us and you start quizzing him about his personal life? Are you moving on from Sasuke to a new crush or something?"

Ino snorted, tossing her hair back before she replied. When she spoke, she pitched her voice to carry to the whole group.

"I was just thinking, what kind of a guy shares his life story with somebody he's barely met?" Ino asked. Sasuke and I both glanced at Naruto, but she ignored us and continued speaking. "He'd have to be a complete moron... or maybe somebody who's pretty sneaky."

"I just have a soft spot for you rookies," Kabuto said, pushing his glasses up his face. "I remember the first time I took the test myself, you know."

"I think you're tired of failing," Ino said, pointing an accusing finger at him. "I think you want us to trust you, so you can take advantage of us later on in the test."

The rookies gathered around us were looking at Ino with a bit of surprise mixed in with respect, and I heard them start grumbling about Kabuto. Before it could develop in to any kind of open confrontation, the proctor for the first exam-Ibiki Morino-appeared in the room in a puff of smoke and directed us to our seats.

The first exam turned out to be a written test, which was pretty much tailor made for my strengths. I worked through the nine problems we had been given with about half of the allotted time left to go and settled in to worry about my teammates.

We lost a point for each incorrect answer, and our team would be disqualified if we lost ten points. I was confident that I had answered the questions correctly, and I thought Sasuke would be able to as well-if nothing else, I'm sure he could use the Sharingan to copy the correct answers from somebody who knew what they were doing. That meant that Naruto just had to get one question right.

Frankly, I wasn't sure he could do it. There was a question involving a thrown shuriken that I thought he might be able to guess his way to the right answer on, but there was no way he could do the math. Other than that, I didn't think he would be able to answer any of the questions. Still, we hadn't seen the tenth question and there wasn't anything I could do about it anyways, so I settled in to wait as best I could.

Of course, things changed when Ibiki announced the special rule for the tenth question. If any member of the team refused to take it, their whole team would be disqualified. But anybody who took the tenth question and got it wrong would never be promoted to chuunin for the rest of their lives.

I wasn't worried about my chances on the tenth question. If I could answer the first nine, there was no reason I couldn't get number ten. My fear was for Naruto. He was just the kind of guy who would go charging headlong into a question he wasn't ready for, and it would break my heart if he were stuck as a genin forever.

I considered volunteering to leave the classroom to protect Naruto, but first I looked up to where Ino was sitting. She saw the question in my eyes and firmly shook her head no.

Seeing Ino's reaction helped me decide to keep my hand down. At this point, Naruto was a ninja of Konoha. If he thought he could answer the tenth question, it wasn't my place to second guess him. I only hoped he wasn't making a big mistake.

Of course, it turned out that everybody who stayed to take the tenth question passed the test. It showed we had the right attitude, the willingness to take risks to complete a dangerous mission or something like that. Like I said, it wouldn't be a ninja test without mind games.

ooOoo

The second phase of the exams was not exactly my cup of tea. Each team was to be given a scroll, marked either "heaven" or "earth." To pass the test, you had to reach the tower within five days with both a heaven and earth scroll. Further complicating things, the tower stood in the center of Konoha's notorious Forest of Death, the site of the second exam.

The test started off well, as we easily fended off an attempted ambush. Unfortunately, our attacker-what arrogance, taking on a team by himself-wasn't carrying the scroll his team had been given, so we weren't any better off than when we started. Still, we were in high spirits... until we ran into Orochimaru.

The legendary ninja didn't identify himself at first, of course, so my first thought was that we were facing another overconfident attacker who thought that rookies would be easy pickings. That thought was driven out of my mind when the "genin" was able to freeze us all in place solely through the power of his killing intent.

Fighting Momoichi Zabuza was one thing. It was obvious that we were overmatched and that if we were forced to fight him without sensei present, we would all probably die. Still, he was at least recognizable as a human being-albeit of phenomenal ability-who could possibly be taken down by a lucky shot, and whose skill we might someday be able to match.

Orochimaru was more of a force of nature. None of our attacks could faze him in the slightest. Even when Naruto tapped into the red chakra that had proven so effective in the battle on the bridge, Orochimaru casually tagged him with an attack to the stomach that snuffed out Naruto's aura like a candle.

In the end, there was no doubt that we only survived the encounter because Orochimaru wanted us to survive. Actually, calling our situation "survival" was being optimistic. Both Naruto and Sasuke were unconscious and seemed unlikely to wake up any time soon. Orochimaru had marked Sasuke with a seal that burned with malevolent chakra, and I had no idea how to deal with it. We were still in the middle of the Forest of Death, surrounded by teams who would be more interested in taking advantage of our weakness than in helping us out.

There was nothing for it to go on. I was grateful for all of the hard training I had been doing lately, as I was able to sling a boy over each shoulder and follow Ino as she scouted around for a safe place to rest. We caught our first break of the day when she found a reasonably defensible cave not far from the site of our battle. After settling the boys inside, we did everything we could to set up a defensive perimeter before settling down for a much needed rest.

Ino volunteered to take the first watch. I appreciated it, since I was bone-tired. Unfortunately, it turned out that taking the second watch meant that I was awake when the team from Sound found us.

ooOoo

I'll admit it, I was starting to doze off when they appeared. Fortunately, they had the courtesy to announce their presence.

"You've been on watch all night, girl," the one in the middle-a hunched over kid with only one eye showing through the bandages wrapped around his face-announced. "You're off duty now. Go fetch Sasuke. The three of us want to take him on."

I didn't bother correcting his assumption that I had been up all night. After that battle with Orochimaru, a short nap didn't really make much difference in my current physical state.

"That's pretty bold, thinking I would give up my teammate so easily!" I called back. I figured that speaking loudly would wake up Ino and, if we were lucky, Sasuke or Naruto. "And why would you show up looking for Sasuke right after Orochimaru put his mark on him? This is pretty suspicious, I think."

"This just keeps getting more interesting," he replied. He had flinched a bit when I mentioned Orochimaru's name. "But now we can't just let you go..."

As he spoke, his teammates-a more normal looking boy and girl, dressed in matching camoflauge patterns-both took a step forward, but they stopped when he made a sign.

"Careful, there," he said. "Freshly turned dirt, grass in places grass shouldn't grow... mind the traps. Though this is a pretty pathetic effort."

I did my best to look terrified as they avoided the "traps" I had left visible on the ground. Once they were in position, I cut the wire holding the tree trunk above them off the ground. Although I couldn't see it under the bandages, I had to imagine there was a pretty satisfying look of shock on the leader's face. Unfortunately, he responded to their predicament by reaching up and using some kind of technique to explode the tree.

I froze. It just wasn't fair. My teammates have ridiculous chakra reserves and A-ranked techniques, half the rookies I know have secret clan techniques, and this kid has tree-exploding powers. He was just about to make some kind of snide remark when Ino came flying out of the cave.

She was heading straight for the normal looking boy on the right hand side of the Sound formation. He had sized her up and was preparing to take her out when she activated her speed seal. I only followed what happened next because of the recent crash course I had been getting on watching high speed combat.

She hit her target like a freight train, barely slowing down as she drove her shoulder into his chest and sent him flying backwards. As the two of them approached a tree at the edge of the clearing she adjusted their approach slightly, sending him flying full speed to the right of the tree while she headed left. She held on to his right arm as she did this, and made sure that the point of contact on the tree trunk was his right shoulder.

There was a sickening crack as his arm popped right off. Ino disappeared up into the trees while the boy fell to the ground. He was screaming, but his screams quickly diminished in intensity as his lifeblood poured out of his shoulder onto the ground.

"Hmm, I didn't realize the Leaf produced such vicious shinobi," the leader said, almost to himself. His remaining comrade was not so restrained.

"Holy shit! That bitch killed Zaku!" The girl screamed. "What the fuck just happened?"

The two of them weren't paying any attention to me, and I thought about attacking. Still, I had thrown a tree trunk at them and he had almost casually blown it up. What good would tossing a kunai do? My best hope was to close to taijutsu range, but that just seemed like a bad idea. I couldn't bring myself to leave the cave, and divided my attention between hating myself and hoping Ino had a plan.

The conversation between the two remaining Sound nin was interrupted by a loud thumping noise, which was accompanied by a flurry of leaves being blown into the clearing.

"Was that..." The girl ended her tirade, and looked to her leader with a question in her eyes. He nodded, and then shoved her across the clearing, using the momentum to push himself the opposite direction. There was another thumping noise, and a crater was blasted into the ground where the two had been standing.

"Dosu, how the fuck is she using Zaku's-" the girl said, then cut herself off. "Over there!"

She threw a trio of senbon toward the other side of the clearing, where they hit nothing but an unsuspecting tree. Dosu started to call out a warning at the same time that Ino materialized out of the bushes behind the girl. She was carrying the disembodied arm of their teammate and as I watched in disbelief she placed it with the palm flat against the girl's lower back.

There was another dull thumping sound, and a visible ripple ran through the girl's body before her stomach just exploded, showering the ground with a slurry that used to be her internal organs.

"Kin..." Dosu said, then glared at Ino. "I don't know how you're using Zaku's implants, but I'm going to kill you for this."

"It's just a little bit of chakra manipulation," Ino said, giving Dosu her best innocent look. The effect was marred by the blood staining her face and clothing. "You do learn about chakra in Otogakure, don't you?"

Dosu snarled and brought his right arm to bear. It held some kind of attachment that fairly pulsed with chakra, and he activated it at the same time that Ino triggered another blast from Zaku's arm. There was a sort of grinding subsonic vibration that I could feel in my bones as their attacks locked in a momentary standoff. Finally their contest destabilized and Ino was blasted backwards. She wound up on her hands and knees at the edge of the clearing, blood streaming freely from her nose. Despite her horrible situation, she was smiling.

Any kind of follow up attack was interrupted by another tremendous burst of power. This time it was a chakra that felt at once familiar and alien. When I saw that Sasuke had slipped past me to stand out in the clearing, I understood. The chakra was fundamentally Sasuke's, but it had been magnified and altered somehow by the seals that were crawling across his skin. There was no denying the increase in power, but I couldn't help but feel like his chakra had been tainted somehow.

Sasuke looked at Dosu, then over at Ino. I could see that he was shocked by her appearance, even through the foreign sensations that must have been coursing through his body thanks to Orochimaru's seal. He turned back to Dosu.

"Did you do that to her?" Sasuke asked.

"Damn right I did!" Dosu replied. "I'm going to finish off that little psycho too-urk!"

He had been cut off by Sasuke, who moved so quickly he seemed to simply appear behind the Sound leader. He had secured both of Dosu's hands behind his back and had begun applying tremendous pressure.

"Hmm, so simple," Sasuke said, talking almost to himself. "Now, just apply a little more pressure..."

"Sasuke, wait!" Ino called out. He stopped what he was doing and looked up as Ino strode across the clearing. Despite her bloodied and tattered outfit, she was putting the grace and elegance into her movements that I normally associated with a dance floor, not a battlefield. I saw Sasuke blink when she reached them and brought the disembodied arm up against his captive's chin.

"Please," Ino said softly, "allow me."

Sasuke didn't get a chance to ask the question that was in his eyes before there was another thumping noise, and Dosu's head evaporated in a bloody mist. Sasuke dropped the body and flinched back, but couldn't avoid being liberally coated in the other boy's blood. Before he could retreat more than half a step, Ino grabbed him by the front of his shirt and yanked him down into a scorching kiss.

Even standing thirty feet away, even through the pain of losing out to my rival, I could feel my heart racing at the intensity of what was happening. Sasuke reacted to Ino's aggression with surprise at first, before he was overcome by the moment and leaned into her arms, deepening their connection. Some timeless moment later, the black marks on his skin started to retreat, and he pushed her away.

"What-" Sasuke's voice cracked, detracting from the commanding tone he was going for. "What are you doing?"

"You know what I'm doing, silly," Ino said, reaching out with one hand and gently running it along Sasuke's cheek-tracing a bloody trail with her finger that almost seemed like a mark of ownership. "The important question is, what do you want to do now?"

"We should check the perimeter," Sasuke said, turning away. "Other teams might have been drawn here by the fight."

Not waiting for a reply, he stalked off. I could tell how flustered he was by the absence of his usual catlike grace.

Ino shrugged, then reached down and picked up Zaku's arm from where she had dropped it after Dosu's demise. She carefully positioned his body and directed another sonic pulse at the shoulder joint, neatly severing Dosu's arm and the attached resonator unit. She studied it for a moment before throwing her head back and laughing out loud.

"Where do they get such wonderful toys?"

ooOoo 


	3. Chapter 3

AN: I told you guys this would get dark, right? As usual, I appreciate any and all feedback.

ooOoo

Naruto woke up soon after the fighting was over, and not long after that we set out toward the tower once again. We had found an Earth scroll on Dosu's body. Combined with the Heaven scroll we were issued, it would have made a complete set-if Orochimaru hadn't set our original scroll on fire the previous day. Still, one scroll was much better than no scrolls, so we were in reasonably good spirits as we travelled through the forest.

Ino was particularly chipper. Once we'd established a comfortable pace, she dropped back to talk to me, transforming our diamond formation into a triangle.

"C'mon, you should try this thing out," she said, holding out one of her captured limbs. She had taken to carrying the two of them strapped across her back like a pair of swords. I had seen the boys give them some nervous glances, but neither of them had said anything yet.

"Ewww, no way," was my automatic reply. "I'm not touching some dead guy's arm."

In an emergency, if it was necessary to save a teammate's life, I'd probably try to figure out how to make it work. But there was no way I would make something so macabre part of my regular arsenal. Ino not only lacked any such compunction, she seemed to find my refusal a bit confusing.

"You know, unless you plan on mastering wind chakra in the next three days, this is the biggest power up you're going to find out here," Ino said. She punctuated her remark by turning and unleashing an attack on an innocent tree as we went by. When the dust cleared three branches were sliced clean off, and the trunk looked like it been clawed by an angry tiger. "It sure beats throwing kunai at people."

I noticed Sasuke had turned to glare at us when Ino set off her demonstration blast, but he didn't say anything as we continued moving through the Forest.

"I just don't want it," I said. When Ino nodded in understanding I entertained the momentary hope that she understood my objection.

"I get it," Ino said. "You're holding out for the real prize."

She tucked the arm back into place over her shoulder and drew forth what must have been Dosu's arm. The resonator bulged unnaturally from the crook of his elbow, appearing in stark relief now that his camoflauging clothing had been removed. Ino had taken the time to cauterize the end where the arm had attached to the shoulder, but it was still showing some unmistakeable signs of rot.

"It took me a while to figure out how to use this one," Ino said. "But once you figure out how resonating frequencies work, it's a real kick in the pants."

She trailed the hand along the trunk of the tree we had just landed on, and the whole trunk exploded. I had to rush my next three jumps just to clear the landing zone of the falling tree. Once I was sure I was safe I glared over at Ino, who was laughing like a maniac.

"Would you cut that out?" Sasuke's voice was as sharp as his words. "You're going to attract the attention of the other teams."

"Tsch, we'll be long gone by the time anybody shows up to investigate that," Ino replied, gesturing back at the fallen tree with the arm she was carrying. "Besides, we need to find some of the other teams so we can replace the Heaven scroll you handed over."

Ino barely gave that barb time to sink home before she turned to our other teammate. "Besides, Naruto thinks explosions are cool, right?"

"Um, sometimes?" Naruto replied, scratching the back of his head. He looked nervous. "Say, where did you get, uh, that, anyways?"

"There was a team from Otogakure that attacked us while you were sleeping," Ino said. I saw Naruto turn green as he realized where the story was going-he had to have guessed this already, but I could see him wilt as his suspicions were confirmed. "Don't worry though, they're no danger any more now that they've been disarmed!"

Ino giggled at her own joke, which didn't help Naruto's mood.

"Hey!" Naruto shouted, surprisingly angry. "You can't just kill people and laugh about it like it means nothing! Those Sound nin were people. They had hopes and dreams and their own people who were precious to them!"

Ino had stopped laughing. Instead she was looking at Naruto with a mixture of scorn and pity.

"What exactly did you expect to happen once you put on your hitaite? Were you paying attention to what Ibiki said? The mission is more important than your life. It's more important than my life, or Sasuke's life, and it's for damn sure more important than some enemy nin's life," Ino said, waving Dosu's arm in the air for emphasis. "Maybe deep down Dosu was a nice guy. I don't give a fuck! Maybe Zaku had loving parents-he should have stayed home with them instead of entering the examination. The only thing that matters to me is that their deaths will help us complete our mission. If there's something else that matters to you then you should do us all a favor and drop out of the exam right now."

By the end of her tirade Ino was practically yelling, and she had moved well within Naruto's personal space. He met her glare evenly, not backing down, but not saying anything either. After a moment Ino gave a little huff and jumped back to the front of the formation.

Sasuke mostly seemed to be pleased that she was no longer in the mood to blow up trees, but Naruto was obviously deep in thought as we moved out. I gave him some time to settle down before I moved in to try to smooth things over. Ino might be right that ultimately Naruto would have to change his worldview, but for the purposes of the exam I figured it was more important that we try towork together as a team for another few days.

"Naruto, look, that was uncalled for, back there," I said once I had approached within speaking distance. He didn't say anything, but his grunt as he landed on a tree branch and took off might have been an acknowledgment. "Dosu... he really wasn't a nice guy. He would have been happy to kill you in your sleep."

Dosu never said that in so many words, but he certainly had seemed the type. Naruto inclined his head the way that he usually did when he was listening.

"You have to be very strong to defeat an enemy without killing," I continued. "If you're not strong enough, what should you do? Let your precious people be killed, or kill your heart and do what you know you have to?"

"It didn't seem like it was that hard," Naruto replied, clearly unconvinced.

I sighed. I didn't even really have to try to make it sound heartfelt. It worried me too that Ino had gone so kill-crazy recently, but I thought I knew why it was happening.

"When you take somebody's life, you can't think of them as a person, not really," I said. "Not even once. Not for a minute. Otherwise, knowing what you've done, how could you live with yourself? It would break anybody."

Naruto looked at me, suddenly stricken. "Sakura-"

I put my hands on his shoulders and looked him in the eye.

"I know it's hard to understand. I hope you never do understand, not really," I said. Personally, I hoped I never really understood, either-I wanted to be there for Ino, but hopefully I could do it from a certain remove. "But for the sake of our team, could you please let this go? Just for now?"

"I..." Naruto said, then swallowed. "fine."

I smiled in relief, and after a moment a tentative smile formed on Naruto's face. At some point he was still going to have to have it out with Ino, but at least it looked like he was willing to postpone that reckoning until after we were out of the Forest of Death.

ooOoo

We settled down for the day when we reached the enormous river that cut through the middle of the forest. It was almost dinner time, and I think all of us were looking forward to having some fresh fish to eat instead of our ration bars. We'd be able to follow the river right down to the tower-the odds were that other teams would have the same idea, but, as Ino had observed, we needed to run into some other team so we could snag another Heaven scroll.

Sasuke and Naruto volunteered to go fishing, and Ino and I agreed to set up the camp. Before the boys headed off I managed to pull Sasuke aside for a talk. I wanted to make sure he knew that the seal on his neck was bad news; he had been trying to play it off like it wasn't affecting him.

"Sasuke, I'm worried," I said. He just grunted, barely deigning to pay me any attention. "I think the seal is affecting your mind. You've been acting strangely ever since you woke up."

That got his attention, as his head snapped around and he stared at me with a shocked look on his face ("shocked" for Sasuke-anybody who didn't know him well would only have seen a raised eyebrow). I don't know why he was so offended; his change in behavior wasn't exactly subtle. He was always an aggressive combatant, but he didn't usually take joy in hurting his opponents the way he did with Dosu.

A long moment passed, and I felt myself blushing slightly; this was the closest scrutiny I had ever received from Sasuke. When he broke his silence, though, it wasn't with some heartfelt vow of appreciation for my emotional support. He just grunted again and leapt away to go fishing with Naruto.

I'm Sasuke's number one fan-number two if you ask Ino-but sometimes he can be such a boy.

I vented my anger with a stream of incoherent grumbling as I set up the cooking pit. Ino finally took pity on me and walked over, eyebrow raised to inquire what was bothering me.I quickly relayed my conversation with Sasuke.

"How can he just shut me out like that?" I asked, hurt. "We're on a team now, we're supposed to support each other. That means we also have to let our teammates help us. He can't just try to do everything by himself."

"Anything that sounds like mental instability is going to be touchy for an Uchiha," Ino said. Trust the captain of the Sasuke Fan Club to argue his side. She was right, though. Even before Sasuke's brother went crazy, there were always rumors about the Uchiha, whispers that the Sharingan made them all nuts. Sasuke's ability to rise above his clan's dark past was part of what made him so admirable.

"Also, he's under a lot of stress right now. I mean, think about it," Ino continued, pulling an apple out of her pack and taking a bite. "He cruised through the Academy-he wasn't just tops in everything, he was easily beating the whole class. Then he graduates, and in our very first big mission he gets beat by Haku. Now he's in this exam, and for the first time he's realizing he might fail a test of his skill as a ninja."

I thought about what she said. It was true, maybe I should cut Sasuke more slack. Still, I wasn't completely mollified.

"That doesn't mean he has to be such a jerk," I said, scuffing my toe in the dirt. "He acts like it would kill him to show a little emotion."

"He is a boy," Ino said, shrugging. "You have to make certain allowances."

She patted me on the shoulder before handing over the apple for me to finish. It was a little thing, but sometimes thoughtful little gestures like that from a good friend can really cheer you up.

By the time the boys returned to camp I was ready to be drawn into Naruto's elaborate re-enactment of his fishing heroics. Occasionally punctuated by a dry comment from Sasuke, his story carried on through supper until it was nearly time for bed.

ooOoo

Three figures landed in the middle of the camp with a whisper of sound, dark shapes barely visible in the moonlight. One of them looked at the remains of the cooking fire and snorted derisively, while another made his way to one of the three sleeping bags.

"You rookies aren't safe here," the figure whispered, barely audible from where I was watching. "You have to-"

That was when the traps started going off.

My personal favorite were the explosive notes. Ino had spent most of her earnings from the mission to Wave picking up some of the fancy remote-activated explosives, and we had scattered a decent portion of them throughout the "campsite." She was setting them off any time our targets wandered near-or whenever she felt like it, it was a little hard to tell.

The trees we had rigged up as a deadfall made an impression, too, hard as they were to see when they came swooping down out of the darkness. A handful of spring loaded kunai launchers added their own brand of fun to the mix.

The three ninja below did a pretty good job of dodging everything, but when Sasuke started firing his own carefully aimed fireballs and shuriken at them along with everything else it was pretty obvious to everybody that it was just a matter of time before we wore them down. Then Naruto jumped in between Sasuke and his targets, waving his hands like a maniac.

"Guys, stop! Stop!" Naruto yelled out. "It's Kabuto!"

Sasuke cut off his fire technique mid-hand sign, and Ino looked up in surprise. The three shadowy figures walked out of the camp and as they came closer it became clear that they were indeed Kabuto and his team. Kabuto looked as calm as ever, but his teammates seemed to be pretty shell shocked.

"I knew he was up to no good!" Ino said. "Picking on helpless rookies, for shame!"

"I hardly have any need to pick on you guys," Kabuto replied, holding up his hand to show off a Heaven and Earth scroll. "I thought I should warn you that the smell of your cooking would attract the other teams, but it looks like you figured that out for yourself."

"Yep!" Ino replied proudly, and rightly so: the trap had been her idea. "Even though we've already got the scrolls, any team we eliminate now is a team we don't have to face later... which is what you might have been thinking too."

I saw Naruto open his mouth when Ino told the lie about the scrolls, but fortunately by that time Sasuke had worked his way around behind Kabuto's team to stand next to Naruto, and elbowed him in the side before he could say anything. I wasn't sure exactly what Ino's game was, but I knew for sure that I didn't want to deal with the fallout if Naruto screwed things up.

"Tsch, so suspicious," Kabuto commented. He seemed more amused than hurt. "The thought may have occurred to me, but not with another team from Konoha. In fact, since we both have all the scrolls, why not stick together the rest of the way to the tower? The other teams will be setting traps along the way, and we'll have a better chance with two teams than with just one."

Ino glanced around at the rest of us. Naruto was nodding enthusiastically; he had really taken a shine to the older genin from the first time they met. Somewhat surprisingly, Sasuke was also giving her the thumbs up. I'm not quite sure what he was thinking. I nodded as well when she turned to me-the more people around that were on our side, the better.

"Fine," Ino said. "You're still too nice for me to really trust, though. I know you must be working some kind of angle."

"The last portion of the exam is usually single combat," Kabuto replied, gesturing over Ino's shoulder. "Maybe I'm just hoping that if we get matched up you'll treat me more gently than you did those two."

Ino hid her mouth behind her hand as she gave a surprisingly ladlylike giggle. "No promises."

ooOoo

We didn't get a lot of sleep that night, between taking down the traps at our old camp and making a new camp a safe distance away. Still, the more time we put between ourseles and our disastrous encounter with Orochimaru, the better our whole team felt.

The next morning we managed to get together for a Team Seven only meeting. Nobody from Kabuto's team even tried to listen in. I'm not sure if they just figured we weren't a threat or if they wanted to have a private meeting of their own.

"Kabuto is the only one on his team that worries me," Ino said. "The other two don't seem like anything special."

Sasuke nodded in acknowledgement, while Naruto just looked confused. "Wait, what are you talking about?"

We all looked at each other, then at Naruto. Sasuke was the one who broke the silence.

"This may be the only chance we get at a Heaven scroll," Sasuke explained. "We should fight them."

"No," Ino said, shaking her head. "We should wait until Kabuto is asleep, then attack."

Sasuke actually looked offended at that idea. "Then how will we know who's stronger?"

"Frankly," Ino replied, "I can live with the mystery as long as we get the scroll."

"Hey, hey, wait a minute!" Naruto jumped in. "We can't attack Kabuto, he's our friend!"

It was a pretty typical Naruto sentiment. He's a nice guy, and a good teammate, but he's almost painfully naive. Sometimes it pays off-he makes friends in the most unlikely places-but sometimes it's a real obstacle to completing a mission. Sasuke was shaking his head sadly while Ino rounded on Naruto.

"Fine, then! Since I'm the only member of the team who's interested in actually completing the mission, I'll take care of the attack. You can keep your hands clean," Ino said. "I shouldn't have any problems if I attack all out from the beginning and don't let up."

"What do you mean, all out?" Naruto asked.

Ino just looked at Naruto. A tense moment passed before realization dawned on his face, and he practically jumped out of his sandals.

"No! No killing Konoha nin! I forbid it!" Naruto yelled out. I glanced around nervously, but fortunately Kabuto's squad was still out of earshot. I couldn't say I disagreed with Naruto's sentiment, really. A little backstabbing to pass a test is one thing, but killing somebody who would be an ally as soon as the exam was over was a bit much.

"You forbid it?" Ino repeated, incredulous. "Did I miss the team meeting where sensei left you in charge, dead last?"

Fortunately, Sasuke stepped in to play peacekeeper.

"We don't need to decide this now," Sasuke said, looking back and forth between our teammates. It may have been my imagination, but he looked a little nervous when he made eye contact with Ino. "We might run into a team today with a Heaven scroll. If we don't, we can decide what to do then."

"Sasuke's right," I said. It seemed like Sasuke could use the support. "There's no need to do anything drastic right now."

Naruto didn't look happy, but he at least seemed to be temporarily mollified. Ino just huffed in frustration and stomped away. I felt bad ganging up on her like that, but she really was starting to worry me. The Academy had taught us to be polite and have a plan to kill everybody we met; Ino seemed determined to carry out every plan she had along those lines.

ooOoo

We didn't run into any other teams that day, which made for a pretty tense team meeting the next morning. Ino agreed not to do anything without running it by the rest of Team Seven first, but we all knew that this was going to be our last night in the forest, and with it our last chance to attack our temporary allies while they were sleeping.

It was almost a relief that afternoon when we realized we had been trapped in a genjutsu. It's always a little unnerving to realize that somebody has been messing with your mind, but I was glad we would have an external enemy to fight.

Any relief I was feeling went away when an army of clones shimmered into view. Our attacks hit like they were made out of water-we could disrupt them a little bit, but unless they were completely destroyed the clone would just ripple a bit before repairing the damage. Their attacks packed a physical punch; the kunai in Kabuto's shoulder could testify to that.

When Ino broke into maniacal laughter it sent a shiver running up my spine, but I also felt a little relieved.

"The clones are all the same... which means that I only need one frequency!" Ino shouted.

A moment later there was a tooth-rattling vibration, and the clones all exploded into smoke. Team Seven managed to get together through the obscuring mist, and we all followed Ino up to a tree branch overlooking the clearing where the fight had taken place.

We all watched as the mist formed back into another set of clones, but another pulse of sound from Ino scattered them back into unformed vapor. I looked over at Sasuke: he had his Sharingan active, but the black marks of the seal had started to spread up his neck. After a moment he hissed and his eyes shifed back to their usual black.

"Did you find the real ones?" Ino asked.

Sasuke gave a pained nod, then pointed out into the clearing. "Underground."

Ino nodded, then started rummaging around in her pouch. "This is going to take something special."

Naruto looked from Ino to Sasuke, then suddenly jumped out of his crouch and brought his hands to his face to help project his voice.

"Oy!" Naruto called out, a pleading note in his tone. "You guys should give up, or she's totally going to kill you!"

He certainly sounded sincere, and even an experienced ninja would have trouble faking the edge of desperation in his voice, but there was no response from below. Ino finally pulled out a soldier pill and, after shooting Naruto a dirty look, downed it.

As soon as the pill took effect she set Dosu's arm aside, drawing the other arm from her back, and started gathering chakra.

Usually Ino and I tend towards more subtle techniques that get the most effect possible for a small investment of chakra, but she was going in a different direction now. She was drawing on all of the chakra she had developed in our endless tree-running exercises, supplemented by the chemicals in the soldier pill. Even with a ninety-nine percent conversion rate, the rest of us could detect the excess chakra being dispersed into the environment.

Finally, with a yell, she unleashed her technique. The howling noise was deafening, but it was hardly the only effect. The ground in the area where she was directing her efforts looked like it was being turned by a giant eggbeater. She started at the spot that Sasuke had pointed out before moving outward in a slow spiral. She managed two full revolutions before she collapsed as the technique-or her chakra-ran out. Sasuke caught her and laid her down on the tree branch with an expression that might have been respect on his face.

The hush that fell over the clearing was broken by a battle cry as one of our opponents popped out of the ground and charged in our direction. He was a scrawny looking kid wearing a rebreather and a Amegakure forehead protector. I didn't get a good look at him as he took a shuriken in the throat and pitched forward to land on his face. Naruto and I both looked at Sasuke in some surprise, but he just glared back at us.

"They were throwing real kunai at us down there, you know," Sasuke said, giving Naruto a significant look.

"Did we get them?" Ino asked as she struggled back to her feet. In response, Sasuke pointed back down at the clearing. Squinting, I could see that near the center of the area of effect of Ino's technique, two pools of blood were gathering on the ground. I whistled.

"I sure hope the last one was carrying the scroll," I said, jumping down to search his body. I was in luck, as a quick search did indeed turn up a Heaven scroll in his carry pouch.

When I returned to our little tree branch I could have kicked myself. Kabuto was grilling Naruto about my interest in the scroll. Sometimes Naruto could be pretty sneaky, but when his heart's not in it he's a terrible liar. Fortunately Ino jumped in to defuse the situation.

"Yes," she said, "we were looking for a Heaven scroll."

Maybe defuse wasn't the right word. There was no trace of an apology either in her tone or in her posture. Kabuto looked her up and down for a long moment.

"So if you were missing a scroll," he said, "you wanted to stick with us... I see."

Though his posture didn't change, I had the sudden sense that Kabuto was furious. I glanced around at my teammates: Sasuke was still hampered by the seal on his neck, and while Naruto was fresh I wasn't sure he would jump into a fight to protect Ino right now. Ino herself had just used up most of her chakra, so if it came down to it it would be me against a whole squad... even if they were five time failures, I didn't like those odds.

Kabuto finally shook his head and stepped back, breaking the tension. "Well, you've gotten what you need now, so I think it's time for us to part ways. I don't really trust having you around any more."

"You say the sweetest things," Ino said, giggling.

Kabuto didn't reply, instead making two sharp hand gestures towards his teammates. The three of them bounded out of the clearing together, leaving us alone once more in the Forest of Death.

ooOoo

The rest of our trip to the tower went smoothly. It was pretty dark once the big fight was over, so we camped in a nearby clearing. We made our way to the tower without any problems the next day. It would have been nice to finish before the last day of the test, but they lined us up in front of the Hokage with all of the other teams. Unfortunately, he had some bad news for us: the second round wasn't over yet. Too many teams had managed to complete the second exam, so a preliminary round of one on one fights was to be used to winnow down the contestants to a reasonable number.

I was heading up with the rest of my team to watch the first fight when sensei tapped me on the shoulder. Once he saw he had my attention he led me to the interior area of the stadium. He didn't say anything, and I started to get nervous as he led me through a series of hallways into an area that looked like an infirmary.

"Sensei, what's going on?" I finally broke down and asked.

He turned around, finally giving me a good look at his face, and I was struck by how old he looked. Usually Kakashi carried himself with a certain youthful energy (and casual disregard for things like meeting times) that made me think of him more like an older brother than an authority figure. In that moment he looked like an experienced shinobi, burdened by a lifetime of regrets.

"Sakura, you won't be participating in the one on one fights," he said. "I'm pulling you out of the exam."

"What?" I asked, shocked. I know I'm not his favorite student, but I couldn't believe he would do something like this. "Do you think I would embarass you out there?"

Kakashi pinched the bridge of his nose and took a moment to collect himself before he replied, which just wound me up even more. Anything that had sensei of all people visibly displaying irritation had to be really bad.

"This is not about me," he said. "This is about your behavior."

"I don't understand," I said, now even more confused. "What did I do?"

"The fact that you can't tell when your behavior is a problem... is even more of a problem," Kakashi said, then knelt down so he was looking me in the eye, placing a hand on either shoulder. "You're still my precious student. That means that I have to protect you, even if it means protecting you from yourself."

"I still don't-ow!" I exclaimed, surprised by a shot in the arm. I glared over at the medic. I guess a ninja doctor has to be pretty sneaky, although my thoughts on the matter quickly faded away as the drug went to work.

ooOoo

When I woke up, Kakashi and the doctor were gone. I thought I was alone in the room until I heard somebody flipping through a stack of paper. I tried to sit up to see what was going on, but found that I was restrained to the bed. Craning my neck around, I was just able to see Ino, who was engrossed in reading through the documents attached to the clipboard in her hands.

"What-" I said, then coughed. "What does it say?"

Ino walked around to sit on the bed, still absently reading.

"Well, they use a lot of bigger words, but the bottom line is that they think you're crazy." Ino said. "With a capital C. And a capital R. And... actually, all in capital letters."

Part of me had been hoping that this was all some big misunderstanding, that the doctor would fix what had to be some kind of bureaucratic mistake. I hadn't realized just how much that hope had been keeping my spirits up until it was gone.

"How could they-" I said, but Ino interrupted.

"According to this you're never going to see the battlefield again, except maybe in the hallucinations caused by their medical treatments," Ino said. "They pretty much plan to keep you locked up and drugged up for the rest of your life."

"This is terrible," I said. I swallowed, and asked the question that I wasn't sure I wanted the answer to. "You don't think..."

"Oh, Sakura, of course not!" Ino said. She leaned in to give me a hug, and I felt a few tears leak out despite my attempt to be strong. It was a relief to know that I at least had one person who believed in me. "I'll always be on your side, you know that."

I took a moment to just bask in Ino's support, but all too soon thoughts of the future started to butt in.

"I'm glad you believe in me," I said, "but what do we do now?"

"We get out of Konoha," Ino said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. She busied herself undoing my bindings while I thought. Getting out of the village seemed like a good idea... certainly better than being locked up. Still, though, could we make it as missing nin? Zabuza had been a lot stronger than me or Ino, and he had died after just a few years of living on his own. I wasn't sure I was cut out for that kind of life.

"I don't know if we could survive that way," I said. "As missing nin, I mean."

"I think we could," Ino said. "But I think it would be even better for us to head for somewhere like Cloud."

I didn't know much about Kumogakure. I knew they weren't on great diplomatic terms with Konoha, so it was possible they wouldn't just turn us over to the Hokage. Still, though, taking in rogue ninja is a pretty big deal, nearly an act of war.

"You think they'd let us join up, just like that?" I asked.

"Well, maybe not," Ino said, before pulling a vial out of the pouch at her side. "Fortunately I got us a universal passport."

I squinted, trying to see what was in the vial. It was hard to make out, distorted by the shape of the vial and the milky fluid inside, but I could just see two white orbs floating within. They almost looked like eyes, but they didn't have any iris or pupils. My breath caught when I realized what that meant.

"Is that... the Byakugan?" I asked.

"Got it in one," Ino chirped, as casually as she would discuss a new pair of shoes.

"How on earth did you get that?" I asked as Ino helped me to stand. I was a little unsteady on my feet, but mostly none the worse for wear for my trip to the hospital.

"Well, Hinata was in a preliminary match with her cousin. It turns out they don't like each other very much, and he almost killed her," Ino explained. "There were a lot of doctors in there working on her, but once she was stabilized they only left one nurse on watch. It was a simple enough snatch and grab, really."

I was shocked. Ino had been increasingly cavalier about taking lives lately, but always directed against our enemies. Hinata was no enemy. I knew Hinata. I liked Hinata.

"How could you do that?" I asked, not doing a great job of keeping the accusation out of my voice.

"Once Konoha decided to lock you up, the ninjas of the village stopped being our allies," Ino said, completely unrepetant. "None of them are going to buck the Hokage for us. You're going to have to catch up: at best, Konoha nin are resources for us to take advantage of. We're lucky we were able to cash in on such a valuable resource so quickly."

"But... Hinata..." I trailed off, not quite sure how to put what I wanted to say into words. Something in my tone seemed to get through to Ino, as her expression softened slightly.

"You know she was never cut out for leading the Main House of the Hyuuga," Ino said. "Now she can go join the branch house and become Naruto's submissive little wife or whatever."

Ino's way of being sensitive has always been a little quirky.

I tried to put aside my sympathy for Hinata and analyze the situation dispassionately. Doing something like this ensured that Konoha would come after us with a fury. But the village already pursues missing nin, so it was hard to say how much difference it would really make. And if the Byakugan did buy our way into Cloud, that would be a huge improvement from trying to scratch out a living as independent operators.

I wasn't ready to let this go completely; at some point Ino and I would have to have a talk about the limits of acceptable behavior. But for now I could put aside my distaste and live with it.

"You know, she really wasn't guarded all that poorly," Kabuto of all people commented as he walked in through the door. "If I hadn't taken care of the two ANBU who were on duty, your little adventure would already be over."

"Senpai, still looking out for me," Ino said, favoring Kabuto with her biggest, fakest, smile. "What a sweet guy you are."

"What can I say," Kabuto said, shrugging. "You're interesting. Interesting enough that if you hand over the Byakugan, I'm willing to introduce you to my master."

"And who is that?" Ino asked. "You know a girl can't just agree to such an open-ended request."

"Lord Orochimaru," Kabuto said. He smiled at the impact that little revelation had on the two of us. Ino fliched back, while I had to sit down on the bed. To think that such a nice guy was working for somebody like Orochimaru.

"I knew there was something off about you!" Ino announced triumphantly, regaining her poise.

"You knew what I wanted you to know," Kabuto said dismissively, then chuckled. "You even thought that you could kill me. Even now, you think you could keep those eyes from me if I felt like taking them."

"You think I couldn't?" Ino asked. She smiled at Kabuto while shifting her stance slightly. He didn't take his hands out of his pockets, but the atmosphere of imminent violence that suddenly appeared between the two of them had me looking for an escape route.

"Besides, even if you beat me," Ino said, "I would just scream for help."

That got a double take out of Kabuto, as he gestured at the vial in her hand. "Scream for help... after what you did?"

Ino's eyes started to tear up as her face seemed to crumple in on itself in an expression of shell-shocked horror.

"I was wandering around the hospital and I saw him doing such horrible things to Hinata... I tried to help, but he was too strong and too fast and there was blood everywhere. Please protect me, sensei..." Ino said, wiping the tears from her face as she resumed her more usual even tone and expression. "After all, I am your precious student."

Kabuto just stared at her. I knew Ino could be pretty manipulative, and even I was taken aback by that performance. After a moment, he began to chuckle.

"Interesting indeed," he said, shaking his head. "I think my master would like to meet you, even if you hold on to the Byakugan for now."

"I could hardly pass up the chance to meet such a legendary shinobi," Ino said. She smiled at him and made as though to follow him out of the room when I cleared my throat.

"What about me?" I asked. Ino glared at me, but I wasn't willing to trust my own safety to the personal connection she was feeling with some crazy spy.

"What about you?" Kabuto asked. I flinched back a little when he turned his attention on me, but continued.

"You said you would take Ino, but will you take me too?" I asked, then pointed at the clipboard. "And you know I'm not crazy, right?"

Kabuto regarded me for a long moment. It was hard to get a read on him with his eyes hidden behind his glasses, but he smiled as he finished his examination.

"Bringing you along shouldn't be a problem," Kabuto said. "Lord Orochimaru will make his own evaluation of your mental state... but I think you'll find that he's more flexible than Konoha about many things."

Somehow I didn't find that too reassuring, but we had gone too far to back out now. I nodded to Kabuto, and we set out from the hospital.

ooOoo

Kabuto took us on a trip through parts of Konoha that I had never visited, and parts of Konoha that I had never suspected might exist. The hospital had an unused stairway that took us down more floors than I thought the building even had. Ultimately it let us out into an underground tunnel. I think we started out heading east, out toward the training fields, but there was no way to know for sure.

After a dizzying combination of underground twists and turns we finally reached a ladder that led up and out of the darkness. Kabuto turned to address us.

"It's probably not a good idea for us to be seen wandering around outside," he said, "at least not as ourselves."

He came up with a set of ANBU uniforms for all of us. I tried not to think about where he got them, although the fact that he was carrying them around suggested that his efforts to recruit us were not as spontaneous as he had made out. Ino and I moved around the corner to preserve our privacy while we changed and then returned to find a member of ANBU waiting where Kabuto had been.

"All set, then?" Even his voice sounded different when filtered through the mask.

"You tell me," I said gesturing at the outfit. "You're the one with experience wearing this getup."

"You'll do," Kabuto replied, and ushered us up the ladder.

We emerged in the fancy hotel district. I had been expecting Orochimaru to be camped out in the middle of the woods somewhere, but I suppose it made sense that he would be hidden among the rest of the foreign visitors. Kabuto led us down one alley, up another, and through a kitchen entrance into a hotel.

The kitchen staff studiously ignored the ANBU walking among them, and we reached the stairwell without incident. A moment later Kabuto stopped us outside of an otherwise unremarkable hotel room door and removed his mask.

"You can lose the disguise now," Kabuto said. "Wait here while I talk to Lord Orochimaru. He's not a big fan of surprises."

With that, Kabuto slipped inside the hotel room and we were alone. It was all I could do not to pace back and forth in the hallway-even if Kabuto had left us, there had to be some kind of observer keeping an eye on us, and I wanted to make a good first impression. Ino just stood by the door, calm as could be. I wanted to shake her, ask why she wasn't nervous, see if she could share the secret with me. Unfortunately that was exactly the kind of outburst I was trying to avoid.

I couldn't say how long it took before Kabuto opened the door and invited us in. Intellectually I know it couldn't have been more than fifteen minutes, but it felt like hours and I felt like I had aged years.

The inside of the hotel room was perfectly ordinary, other than its occupant. Orochimaru was seated comfortably on a simple wooden chair; just from the fact that he was seated in it, it seemed like a throne. The legendary ninja didn't look exactly as he had when we had run into him on the battlefield, but there was no mistaking his presence or the wicked intelligence in his eyes.

"So," he said, just a hint of sibilance marking his famed alliance with the snake summons, "this is the girl who killed three of my shinobi and thinks she will be welcome into my service?"

"Please," Ino said. She sounded more like she was talking to a disappointed teacher than to a man who could kill her before she could blink. "If you really cared about trash like that, you wouldn't be you."

"You rate yourself so highly?" Orochimaru asked. I couldn't tell if he was really interested, or just giving her a chance to make a mistake.

"Of course," Ino said, before yanking down her armband to reveal her personal enhancement seal. "I developed this myself with a scroll on sealing theory and some animal experimentation. Those three had access to the fruits of your genius. And yet here I stand talking to you, while they lie in the Forest of Death. Imagine what I could do under your guidance."

"You don't fear me?" Orochimaru asked. He still seemed more curious than angry, though of course any impression I was able to discern of his emotions was only what he wanted me to see.

"Of course I do." Ino said, although nothing in her posture showed it. "But you will do with me what you will regardless of my fear. A shinobi does not indulge irrelevant emotions."

I couldn't believe she was quoting the shinobi rules at one of the Legendary Three. He seemed surprised too, chuckling at the absurdity.

"You always live by the shinobi rules, child?" He asked.

"When I can," Ino replied.

"Yes," Orochimaru said, steepling his fingers together, "we are of course long past the one about loyalty to the village."

He turned to Kabuto and conversed with him, keeping their voices too low for me to make out. Then he fixed all of his attention on me.

"And why should I accept the services of a tagalong who has never even killed an enemy shinobi?"

I flinched back. This wasn't like the battlefield, being overwhelmed by the blunt instrument of his killing intent. Instead, I had the sense that I had the full attention of a ninja whose accomplishments and intelligence outstripped mine in every way, and always would. That every flaw I was aware of, and many that I had no idea existed, was obvious to his eyes. I did my best to put a brave face on things, but I knew I was doing a shoddy job compared to Ino.

"I-I would be a loyal and diligent shinobi..." I trailed off as Orochimaru returned his attention to Kabuto.

"She doesn't realize?" He asked. Kabuto shook his head.

"Her conscious mind actively avoids putting the pieces together," Kabuto said. "I admit I'm curious what would happen if we forced the issue."

"What are you talking about?" I asked, my curiosity-and my irritation at being spoken of as if I weren't there-overcoming.

Orochimaru didn't answer my question, at least not directly. "You are aware, are you not, that the village assigns its young ninja to three person squads?"

I nodded.

"Then how do you explain your situation?" Orochimaru asked. I held back a smile, but I was relieved that he was asking me questions that I had figured out the answer to long ago, instead of pressing me on my shortcomings as a kunoichi.

"The Hokage must have made an exception," I replied.

"Why would he make an exception for a clanless girl like you?" Orochimaru asked. He seemed surprisingly interested in my answer.

"I don't know," I said, shrugging. "He's the God of Shinobi, he can do what he wants."

Orochimaru leaned forward as he pursued a new line of questioning.

"And did you never wonder why none of the other teams complained about your team having an extra member?"

I shrugged again. "I guess they all had their own problems to worry about."

"In the field, did the four of you ever work together to any great effect?" Orochimaru asked.

"I'm not sure what you mean," I replied. "We worked together like any other team, I guess."

"What I mean is that, for example, Ino seems to have quite the knack for deveoping unorthodox attacks that are nonetheless quite devastating," Orochimaru said. He was still watching me intently, and I was starting to feel uncomfortable. "Did you ever take advantage of any of the openings she created?"

"Well... no," I admitted. "I know I'm not as strong a kunoichi as Ino, but-"

"Ah, but that is where you are wrong," Orochimaru said, catching my eyes with his. I found myself almost mesmerized by the intensity of his gaze. "You see, Sakura, you are Ino. Or rather, there is no Ino."

"That's ridiculous," I snapped. "She's right over..."

I trailed off when I turned to look at Ino and saw that she had turned oddly transparent. That was impossible, unless she had replaced herself with a clone somehow and-but she never would have been able to use ninjutsu around Orochimaru without provoking a swift and lethal response. Swallowing, I looked at her arm, the armband that marked her captaincy of the Sasuke fan club and the seal she had developed through such painstaking effort. Looking down at my arm, I saw the same armband and seal, plain as day.

My mind spun as I tried to think back. I remembered watching-no, I remembered charging, charging right at those Sound genin. I remembered surprising Zaku with my speed, the satisfying crack as his arm shattered against the tree trunk. I remembered figuring out how to work the implant in his arm, my amazement at the simple genius of its design. I remembered killing Kin, then Dosu. I remembered... I blushed as I remembered kissing Sasuke, and forced my attention back to the present.

Ino was looking at me apologetically. It was an expression I hadn't seen on her face since the time we got caught trying one of her more adventurous ideas for sneaking into the library after hours.

"How..." I whispered. I couldn't bring myself to be more specific.

"Remember when you were younger, how you always wanted a big sister to watch over you? Your beautiful, strong protector, the perfect kunoichi and perfect friend? Well, she never showed up," Ino said, a wry smile on her face. "Instead you came up with me, your very own inner-oneesan."

She spun around and put her hands out as though she were on display. When she looked at me again, she looked strangely vulnerable.

"You have to admit I've done a pretty good job looking after you, right?"

I did the only reasonable thing I could under the circumstances: I passed out. 


	4. Chapter 4

AN: Sorry about the long delay between chapters. In my defense, this came out a little longer than I expected. Also, Europa Universalis IV came out, so... yeah.

ooOoo

The next time I opened my eyes I was surrounded by absolute darkness. For a moment I thought I was dreaming: I couldn't see or hear anything, and it felt like I was floating on air. The illusion was dispelled when I tried moving my arms and found that my hands were underneath a blanket of some kind. A little further exploration revealed that I was surrounded by silk sheets, perched on top of an absurdly luxurious bed. Apparently working for Orochimaru paid off in creature comforts, at least.

I pulled myself into a sitting position, the better to stay awake as I contemplated my foolishness. How could I have been so oblivious? All of the odd looks from my teammates-and before that, my classmates-all of the irregularities in our team construction, all of the evidence I had ignored... it was as Kabuto had said, I had been willfully blind. Was my life really so bad that I had chosen to embrace a delusion?

I ignored the faint echo of remembered loneliness at the thought of my life before Ino as I buried my face in my hands with a groan. No wonder Konoha had thought that I was crazy: I was absolutely nuts.

My thoughts were cut off when I felt an eyepatch covering my left eye. Feeling a growing sense of apprehension, I stood and crossed the room. My feet seemed to know exactly where to go, and some instinct led me to place my hand on the wall in front of me and channel some chakra into it. As soon as my chakra leeched into the wall a set of seals spaced around the ceiling began to glow, illuminating the room.

I took a quick look around. The room was dominated by the four-poster bed that I had just vacated. The overstuffed mattress and rumpled sheets looked more inviting than my futon at home ever had, but I had a feeling I had spent too much time sleeping already. One wall was occupied by a solidly built armoire. The opposite wall held a chest of drawers and a mirror, to which I found myself irrestibly drawn.

I was somewhat relieved to find my own face staring back at me in the mirror-I had been half expecting to see Ino smiling at me-but any comfort I took in that was outweighed by the eyepatch covering my left eye. I didn't see any scars on my face that suggested this was a battle wound, and a part of me wasn't surprised when I flipped up the covering to reveal an eye with no pupil that still seemed to be staring right at me.

I may not have been surprised, but I was still horrified, and I spent a fair few seconds just staring at myself in the mirror.

"The boss only let us keep one," Ino said, her voice breaking me out of my stupor, "but it's still pretty cool. Try channeling some chakra through it, I think you'll like it."

"You!" I snarled, lashing out with a punch that Ino dodged easily. "Why are you still here?"

Ino just smiled and shook her head.

"We're past the point where you can just wish me away, I think," she said. "Besides, would you really want to do that? We're stronger now than we've ever been."

"Stronger? You think I care about being stronger?" I snarled. "Thanks to you I've betrayed my village and hurt my friends!"

I punctuated my statement by throwing another punch at Ino. As I did anotherinstinct led me to channel chakra down my arm. She sidestepped the punch, but as my hand reached full extension a ripple of disturbed air swept out in front of me. Ino's form only distorted slightly as it passed through, but the effect was more dramatic when it reached the furniture. The armoire and half of the bed were reduced to kindling.

"Hey, I like that bed!" Ino protested.

I paid no attention to her complaints, and didn't pause to consider what had just happened. Instead, I lashed out with a side kick. Once more I instinctively channeled chakra into the strike. This time a tongue of flame lashed out at Ino. It passed through her without any effect, but did manage to destroy what was left of the bed and set the remains on fire.

"Do you really think you're going to solve this by punching your imaginary friend?" Ino asked.

I stopped in my assault to assess the situation. She certainly seemed unaffected by any of my attacks. I couldn't think of anything to do but glare at her and hope she spontaneously vanished.

Ino smiled happily at the break in the hostilities. "Also, I think we should get out of this room before that fire really gets dangerous."

The room itself was made of stone, so there wasn't much danger of the fire spreading, but now that she mentioned it the smoke was starting to be a little disconcerting. I grabbed a dress from the drawer in front of me and shrugged it over my head before moving to the door and stepping outside.

Ino followed-I guess she was always around me, anyway-and the two of us seemed to be alone in a hallway. There wasn't much decoration other than the torches that were providing illumination. The ceiling, floor, and walls were all made of stone. I got the impression that the whole complex was carved out of a mountain somewhere.

When I turned my attention from examining the surroundings I saw that Ino had fixed me with a serious look.

"The village betrayed us first, you know. Look-" Ino said, holding up a hand to forestall my protests. "I know you don't want to admit it, but I'm part of you. And they decided to lock you up for it. Would you really rather be in some insane asylum right now?"

I didn't have a ready response for that. After all, I had followed along on this whole crazy adventure willingly enough. But that was when I thought Konoha was wrongly imprisoning me. Now that it turned out their fears were justified, I wasn't so sure that we had done the right thing.

"As for our classmates," Ino continued, taking my silence as agreement, "Sasuke will be joining us soon enough. I think it's a bit of a stretch to call anybody else a friend. Naruto's more like a lost puppy that follows us around."

I was going to say something in defense of Naruto, but I froze when I processed what she had said about Sasuke. Bad enough that my insanity had led me to abandon the village, now it was dragging Sasuke down too.

"Sasuke will be joining-it doesn't make me feel any better that you're fixing one crime by commiting another crime!" I said, shocked.

Ino didn't have a chance to respond before our conversation was interrupted.

"Hey, are you ok?" The friendly words and tone were at odds with the frightening appearance of the young man who was approaching down the corridor. He stood over a head taller than I did, and seemed to be twice as wide as me. His most notable feature was his orange hair: he had shaved off all of it except for a tuft on either side of his head and a stripe in the middle. Overall he was an intimidating presence, and I couldn't help flinching away.

"I'm fine," I said, hoping he would go away. Apparently that was the wrong thing to say, as he responded by leaping forward faster than anybody that big had a right to move, wrapping me up easily in a bear hug with a single arm. He began rooting through his equipment pouch with his other hand, eventually pulling out a piece of paper that he slapped onto my right arm near the shoulder.

I felt a sort of pins and needles sensation sweep over me, but I didn't notice any other change. Then I managed to squirm free and instead of punching him in the face with my free arm I found myself affectionately rubbing his bald spot.

"Jirobou, you're a peach," the voice was mine, but the inflection was so obviously Ino that I didn't immediately realize that I had spoken. "You better set me down now so I can get my things before we meet with the others."

"Ok boss," the man, now identified as Jirobou, said amicably enough. He suited word to deed and I soon found myself standing on my own two feet.

It was like a dream-or a nightmare. I could still see everything I could usually see, and feel everything I could usually feel. I just couldn't exercise any control over my body as Ino walked us down the corridor. I found myself helpless to affect what she was doing as she opened up a door and stepped inside what was obviously a supply room.

"It's probably safer for both of us if I stay in charge for the moment," Ino said. It took me a second to realize that she was talking to me, but it wasn't like I could do anything to talk back. "Our new teammates need some firm guidance, unfortunately."

Ino didn't say anything else as she used my body to dig up a standard equipment pouch, then wrapped a bandage around the seal Jirobu had trapped me with. The last item she dug out of storage was a headband; she gave me a minute to look at the symbol for Otogakure etched on its face before she settled it over our stolen eye.

"I know you're upset right now," Ino said, which was an understatement. I would have been screaming my head off if not for the fact that I couldn't scream at all. I tried to console myself with thoughts of revenge, but it was hard to imagine the situation turning in my favor any time soon. "Once Sasuke's here everything's going to work out though, you'll see."

It was hard for me to wrap my mind around it, but Ino seemed to believe she was doing me a favor. She had ruined my life in Konoha, taken over what was left of it, and she didn't even sound guilty. I couldn't do a thing about it, though-I couldn't even make Ino stumble as she walked back out into the hall and fell into step with Jirobou.

I was pulled out of my impotent fuming when a new voice came drifting down the corridor. Even if I wasn't in control of my eyes, at least it seemed I was about to see something new.

"... and then the bear says, this isn't about the summoning contract any more, is it?" It was a woman's voice, and she laughed along with a couple of other voices at the punch line to her joke. Next to me, Jirobu shook his head andmuttered something about language.

Ino seemed to light up: I felt my mouth stretch into a grin as she practically bounded around a corner. Her new friends-two guys and a girl-seemed a little off. The first one who caught my attention had a brash smile and confident demeanor that reminded me of Kiba, if Kiba had had six arms. That's not something you see every day, even among shinobi. I couldn't tell just from looking at him whether it was a bloodline or just more of Orochimaru's body modification techniques.

The other boy would have been pretty, with his fine bone structure and silky hair, except for the extra head growing out of his back that was complimenting the girl on her sense of humor. We like our bloodlines in Konoha, but I would have a hard time taking something like that in stride.

The girl didn't look like much. Red hair, a couple of years older and a couple of inches taller than me, nothing really jumped out the way it did with the two guys. Still, something about the way she was looking at us made me think that if I did regain control of my body she would be the one to watch out for.

"So guys, good news!" Ino chirped out in my voice. "Not only is today the day we start the retrieval mission, but my other half is awake! She can't really talk, but I'm excited to introduce you guys."

The three of them just looked at me and I wished I could find some way to dig myself into a hole. To have weirdos like this staring at me like I was a freak was just too much.

"Sakon. And Udon," The pretty boy said, gesturing back with his head to indicate his other head. I don't know if the fact that the head belonged to a totally different person made him more creepy or less creepy, although I wasn't really in a place to be criticizing somebody for carting around an extra personality. "That lump over there is Kidomaru. He's not usually quiet for this long, so enjoy it while you can."

"Hey, I just don't want to intimidate her," the boy with the extra arms protested. "Some girls are frightened by a guy with six arms... although others are curious."

He finished off his little statement by spreading out his arms as if to show them off while waggling his eyebrows suggestively. For once I found myself on the same page as Ino as she let out a laugh.

"I wish she could talk back, then you could be rejected twice by the same girl," Ino said, before bringing my hand to my mouth in a fake expression of surprise. "But, I guess that wouldn't really be a new experience for you, would it?"

The whole group laughed along with her that time-even Kidomaru chuckled a bit, acknowledging the criticism-and then the collective attention turned to the girl. She glared back at Ino for a long moment before she said anything.

"You seriously want me to introduce myself to the voice in your head?" She asked.

"Tayuya," Ino's voice was flat, but our gaze didn't waver from the girl's. "Play nice."

The room was silent and I felt tension starting to mount, but before any kind of violence could erupt Tayuya gave way with a shrug.

"Whatever, I'm Tayuya," she said. "Now can we get started on the mission already?"

Ino shrugged, and Tayuya seemed to take that as permission, turning on her heel and stalking out of the room. The other two boys followed her, but Ino was stopped from moving forward by a large hand on her shoulder. She looked over, and I saw Jirobou leaning forward to say something.

"Don't worry about her," he said, "she just takes a while to warm up to people."

ooOoo

The oddest thing about traveling with the Sound team was how normal it all was. They were all hardened criminals and powerful shinobi-Ino made sure to take a look at the entry in the bingo book that listead each of them as A-ranked threats-but they joked around like any random group of Konoha ninja.

They also deferred to Ino without hesitation or resentment. Not that she threw her weight around all the time, but she decided when the team started moving, when it stopped, and when they would stop for meals. Everybody acquiesced in her decisions with nothing more than a little token grumbling. I despaired at the thought of ever carrying myself with such confidence, let alone pulling off whatever Ino had done to win her position at the head of the group.

The landscape gradually grew more familiar. Ino was taking her time, sometimes keeping the group moving for no more than a couple of hours in a day. About a week into the trip something seemed to change, and she pushed the whole group on a run that lasted most of the day, bringing the group to a halt in the early evening in front of the walls of the village.

The team sneaked in through a conveniently placed tunnel-no doubt Orochimaru had an extensive list of secret passages in and out of Konoha-and made their way to the Uchiha compound. Ino gestured at the group to stay in the courtyard while she hopped up to Sasuke's balcony.

I had done my best to stay sane by focusing more on my plans for the future instead of the horror of my present situation. A prisoner in my own body, there wasn't much else I could do. But when Ino stepped into Sasuke's bedroom and we looked down on his sleeping face, I couldn't help but be fully present in the moment.

Seeing Sasuke while he was asleep was one of the guilty pleasures I took out of being on Team Seven. Awake he was handsome, driven; asleep he was almost cute. When his habitual scowl left his face and he finally relaxed in a way that he wouldn't allow himself to do while awake, there was a kind of vulnerability there that really tugged on my heartstrings.

Ino paused for a moment, and I felt a moment of kinship with her-whatever our differences, we had shared the same dream of standing in Sasuke's bedroom. Then she pulled a seal out of her pouch and slapped it on Sasuke's forehead. His breathing slowed as he shifted from sleep to a deeper unconsciousness, and Ino pulled out a coil of rope and quickly had Sasuke tied down spread eagle on his back in the middle of the bed.

Maybe we didn't have exactly the same dreams about this situation.

Ino spent a moment admiring her handiwork-Sasuke looked even younger now that his incongruously cute Uchiha-themed pajamas were exposed-before pulling the seal from Sasuke's forehead. I felt my mouth stretch in a mischievous grin before Ino leaned down and planted a kiss on Sasuke's lips. She lingered briefly before pulling back to watch him wake.

"Sakura?" Sasuke said, blinking as he peered up at us. "You're alive?"

"Of course I am, silly," Ino said, giggling.

"They said you died trying to protect Hinata from Kabuto," Sasuke said, then seemed to come more fully awake as he tried to sit up. "Why can't I move?"

"Well, obviously they were wrong," Ino said, waving my hand dismissively. "You can't really blame them though, Kabuto is quite clever with dead bodies."

Sasuke mostly seemed to ignore this comment as he began trying to move in earnest. First his upper body, then his legs, then both together. I could see the ropes straining, but they held. It looked to me like he wasn't going anywhere, which was hardly a surprise. Ino was enough of a professional that when she tied somebody up I expected them to stay tied up.

"What the hell?" Sasuke asked. He must have been upset, he didn't usually resort to coarse language. "What's going on?"

"I tied you up, obviously," Ino said, before leaning forward to whisper in Sasuke's ear. "Don't worry though, you should be able to break free."

Sasuke redoubled his efforts at that, lifting his body off of the bed as he pulled against the ropes as hard as he could. Ino ran a hand down Sasuke's arm. He wasn't a big guy like Jirobou, but I could feel the wiry definition in his arms as he struggled to escape.

"Mmm, I see you've been training," Ino commented, resting my hand on his bicep. "But if you're going to get free you're going to need a little something extra."

Sasuke's eyes flashed red, but before I even registered that he was activating the Sharingan Ino had whipped my hand around, covering his eyes with a makeshift blindfold that I recognized as my favorite scarf; the white silk one with little embroidered cherry blossoms that I saved for special occasions. She punctuated the remark with a scolding cluck of my tongue.

"No special eye techniques for you, mister," Ino said. "You're really making an effort to avoid the obvious power up here."

Ino followed up her remark by leaning over and placing a big kiss right on Sasuke's curse mark. He flinched back at that, although it was hard to tell if it was from the unwelcome contact or from the suggestion that he draw on Orochimaru's power.

"That power... it feels wrong," Sasuke said, mid-squirm. "Sensei said it was too dangerous to use."

"Sensei said I was dead. He's not right all the time," Ino said, levering my body back up into an upright position. "All power is dangerous. The only question is whether you are strong enough to control it."

Sasuke didn't say anything, just glowering up at the ceiling as if he weren't blindfolded. I was amazed that he managed to project such an air of wounded dignity while he was tied spread eagle to a bed.

"I guess you did always zone out every time Iruke started talking about moral philosophy," Ino commented when it became clear Sasuke wouldn't respond. He wasn't alone in that; a lot of the members of our class were more interested in the practical aspects of ninja life than in debating why things were the way they were. "Still, I never thought Naruto would be so much stronger than you in any way."

Sasuke didn't say anything in response, but the tightening of his jaw made it clear that Ino had scored a direct hit, and I felt my mouth stretch into a grin as she continued.

"That red chakra he uses doesn't feel like it comes from some place of sweetness and light, you know," Ino said. "But he still goes after life with that same stupid optimism no matter what. He's driven by hope... and you're driven by fear."

"I'm driven-" Sasuke said, then visibly stopped and collected himself. "I have something I have to do."

"Right, that man you have to kill," Ino said, nodding, apparently forgetting or just not caring that Sasuke couldn't see at the moment. "It's obvious that the fear that man inspires in you drives your whole life. I wonder, though, if you're afraid of him or if you're afraid of becoming like him."

Sasuke's whole body seized up in rage, and I gave a silent prayer of thanks that the Sharingan's power extended only to enhancing and clouding perception. If Sasuke could shoot fire out of his eyes I have no doubt that I would have been burned to a crisp at that moment.

Ino waited a moment to see if Sasuke was going to respond, but he seemed determined to just ignore her and hope she went away. I didn't think she would let that stand, and it didn't take long for my suspicion to be confirmed.

I felt my shoulders move in a shrug before Ino brought my right arm down to hover over the collar of Sasuke's nightshirt. She channeled some chakra through the arm: I couldn't tell exactly what she was doing, but it wasn't using very much power. As she ran my hand down Sasuke's torso, her purpose became clear. Where an unfocused burst of chakra had produced a powerful burst of wind, apparently an expert in the use of the implant could produce more subtle effects, a fact that became apparent as a neat cut ran down the middle of Sasuke's shirt, trailing behind my hand.

That seemed to snap Sasuke out of his silent rage. He couldn't see exactly what was going on, but he could definitely feel that something was happening as his shirt was sliced open.

"What are you doing?" He asked. He did an admirable job of keeping his nervousness out of his voice, but to a trained shinobi it was pretty obvious.

"Well, if you're just going to lay there like a lump I'm going to have to keep myself entertained somehow," Ino said. She finished the first cut, then moved up to slice down the sleeves as well. When she was finished, a quick burst of air sent the pieces of his nightshirt fluttering around the room.

"Wha-what?" Sasuke asked, all pretense of stoicism gone. The break in his voice reminded me of when he had asked the same question just after Ino had kissed him back in the forest. I noticed that the first hints of black lines had begun spreading from the seal on his neck, but Ino didn't seem to be concerned as she chuckled before replying.

"Oh, don't worry about your virtue," she said, before leaning down to whisper in his ear. "You may be nice to look at, but I don't have any interest in a little boy who's too scared to reach out and take what he wants. If-"

Ino didn't get a chance to finish her sentence as the seal marks exploded over Sasuke's body. He ripped through the ropes like they were made of spiderwebs and then, in a motion to quick for me to follow, he was on top of us, pinning my hands over my head. I felt Ino's breath catch in her throat, and I felt the same sort of terrified excitement as we stared up at Sasuke's eyes. At some point he had freed himself from the blindfold, and the swirling tomoe in his eye were oddly hypnotic in the dark.

"Is this what you wanted?" Sasuke growled, increasing the pressure on my wrists to the point where it started to be painful.

"Mmm," Ino replied, arching my back. "It's a start."

With that, Ino channeled some chakra down my left arm and pulled it free of Sasuke's grasp. Before he could react, she reached across and backhanded him viciously across the face, at the same time bucking up with my legs to send him up in the air. Sasuke seemed to float in the air as his body rotated from the force of the blow, and I realized what had happened: Ino hadn't sent chakra to my arm to strengthen the muscles, but to release her seal. I knew the effects of the seal only lasted for seconds, but the first hand experience of it seemed to stretch out for minutes.

Ino continued folding my legs up in one smooth motion, touching my knees to my chest at the same time that she caught Sasuke in the lower back with my feet. She kicked my legs forward, sending Sasuke flying out towards the balcony. Things snapped back into normal speed as he crashed into the railing with a yelp and slammed down into the courtyard below.

Ino just lay on the mattress for a moment until our breathing was under control, listening as our new teammates' voices drifted in through the window. Before standing, she rolled over and took a deep breath in through my nose. It was kind of gross-both of us had been sweating all over the pillow-but there was a scent to it that was unmistakably Sasuke. I felt the grin on my face as she rolled back over and stood up before grabbing the the pillow and sealing it into a storage scroll. Theft complete, she walked over to the mirror hanging on the wall.

"I've had to be a little more forceful than I expected, but Sasuke's finally coming out of his shell," Ino said, flashing a V for victory sign in the mirror. "Pretty soon you'll have Sasuke and you'll be a strong and beautiful kunoichi! I know this has been tough, but I'm making your dreams come true!"

ooOoo

I spent most of the next day worrying over what Ino said. Was she actually making all of my dreams come true? I guess when I was younger that really was all I dreamed about: winning Sasuke's heart and becoming a strong kunoichi. Those two things definitely dominated all of the little games I played with Ino when I was younger. I had never imagined anything like this happening though.

I guess Iruka would say that wanting a thing implies wanting what is necessary to accomplish the thing, in which case maybe Ino was right: if this was the only way to win Sasuke and be strong, then this is what I wanted. That didn't feel right to me, though.

I wanted Sasuke's heart, but I never wanted to badger him-or frighten him-into caring for me. I wanted him to notice me on his own and pursue me because he thought I was worth pursuing. Maybe those were the foolish daydreams of a little girl, but that was what I wanted. Not to pique his interest with violent behavior and lead him to betray the village.

The same problem infected Ino's pursuit of strength. I had wanted to be strong, but ultimately my dream was to be a hero. Somebody who was respected not just because of her strength but also because of who she was. Working for Orochimaru may have provided Ino and I with a boost of strength, but the cost-I pictuerd Hinata lying sightless on the hospital bed-the cost was far too high.

Ino had made a mistake, and if I ever had control of my body again I was determined to try to set things right. I hoped I could explain my thinking to her, but even if she couldn't be convinced there had to be something I could do to fix things.

I had plenty of time to think through increasingly unlikely scenarios as the team spent the afternoon hiding in the outskirts of Konoha, waiting for Sasuke to appear. True night had just settled over the village when I noticed that Ino had turned my head to look at Tayuya, and I realized the girl was finishing up another one of her stories.

"So he says, we call our act The Aristocrats!" Tayuya said, holding her arms out as if expecting applause. Instead of the usual laughter she was confronted by dead silence.

"You have serious problems," Sakon said. The green shade of his lipstick was matched by a sickly tint in his cheeks.

"Yeah, I don't even..." Kidomaru said, waving his three left hands aimlessly. Jirobou just shook his head.

"Whatever, you guys just don't appreciate art," Tayuya said carelessly, waving a hand in dismissal before turning to face me. "You think our target's going to show up? He seemed pretty pissed off last night."

"If there's one thing Sasuke wants, it's power," Ino replied. "He doesn't have to like us to take what we're offering."

"He certainly didn't seem to like you after you showed off your blueballs no jutsu. But I guess 'like' isn't what you're aiming for," Tayuya said, leering at me. "I have to say, I don't know what you see in such a scrawny little thing. I want to feel like my man could tear me in half... or split me in half."

Tayuya punctuated her comment by laying a possessive hand on Jirobou's shoulder. The large boy blushed as she leaned up to whisper something in his ear. I felt a fond smile touch my lips before Ino spoke.

"I have to admit, you two are cute together," Ino said, then shrugged. "What can I say, I like the pretty boys."

As she spoke, Ino slowly turned to look at the other two members of our team. Her gaze passed over Kidomaru's hopeful look to settle on Sakon. He already had his hands arranged in the warding gesture that superstitious civilians used to fend off evil spirits. It took me a second to realize that a third hand had emerged from his stomach to join in. I felt the grin on my face widen in response.

"I especially like it when they play hard to get," Ino said.

Further conversation was cut off at a hiss from Kidomaru. He had a technique that let him deploy incredibly fine spider webs as trip wires; no one would be able to approach our little clearing without giving us advance warning. We all moved to take up position in case our visitor wasn't the one we were expecting.

I wasn't sure whether to be relieved or disappointed when Sasuke walked out of the trees. On the one hand, I was glad not to be in the middle of a fight with village law enforcement. On the other hand, having Sasuke take such a step on his own really drove home the fact that he was willing to abandon the village, and I couldn't help feeling that I was at least partially to blame.

"You've made the right choice, Sasuke," Sakon said, formally taking a knee in front of my former teammate. Sasuke just grunted in response, his body language uncertain. "The first thing we do now is, well, there's no easy way to say it... you have to die."

Sasuke took a step back into a defensive stance, but before things could dissolve into violence Ino's laughter rang through the clearing. "Think, Sasuke, if this was that kind of mission you never would have woken up last night. Sakon just likes being dramatic."

Sasuke relaxed, and Sakon continued his explanation of how they were going to activate the next level of the curse seal. It was interesting stuff, but I only gave it half of my attention as Sakon's initial statement struck a chord in me.

I had been proceeding on the assumption that Ino genuinely had my best interests at heart, but was just misguided. But what if she were actively hostile? After all, she had figured out a way to seal me away from the use of my own body, and she hadn't shown any signs of letting me take the reins. However much she might profess to be working to accomplish my goals, her actions were identical to what she would be doing if she were working to take over my life.

If that was what was going on, my options were limited. There could be no negotiation: we only had the one body between us, and I wasn't going to just give it up without a fight. The problem was that I would be coming to battle unarmed. I hadn't been able to suss out any way around the seal from the inside, and even if we went back to our old arrangement there was nothing stopping her from just recreating the seal the next time she was in control.

Ending my life didn't seem like much of a solution to the problem of Ino ruining my life, but it just might be that the only way to stop Ino from doing horrible things with my body was to die. I wanted to think that there was something better I could try, but I still found myself almost nodding along to the statement that "you have to die."

While I was worrying about my future, the other four members of the team finished a complicated-looking sealing ritual that locked Sasuke away in a box covered in mystic symbols. The thought struck me that in a way it brought us closer together-both of us locked away behind seals, unable to move-and I was glad that I wasn't in control of my body right now, because I was feeling a strong urge to laugh until I cried.

ooOoo

Jirobu carried the barrel on his shoulder as the group made its way through the forest. We didn't move particularly quickly. Even a strong guy like Jirobu was slowed down by carrying another person, and any group is only as fast as its slowest member. Nobody seemed too concerned, though.

For that matter, we weren't taking a very direct path out of the area. Ino had set out in the lead, but she wasn't moving in anything like a straight line. We would amble along for a couple of hours, change directions and take to the trees in a short sprint, then move out on a course similar to but not quite exactly like our previous vector. We were generally moving in the right direction, but it was a little surprising how unconcerned they seemed to be with putting distance between themselves and the village they had just robbed of its last Uchiha.

When a full day had passed and we hadn't run into any patrols at all, I finally realized why the team was so carefree. They weren't taking the shortest path out of town; they were taking the path that didn't have any guards on it. It was a shocking example of the level of information that Orochimaru still had on his old village. Or, a little voice in the back of my head whispered, it could have come from me.

Keeping track of the general patrol routes around the village had been the kind of thing I did in my efforts to be a good kunoichi-after all, you never knew when you might need to seek out a friendly set of hands for help. How easy would it have been for Ino to take that habit and push to discover the truly classified details you would need to know to sneak in and out of the area unobserved? I had that cheerful thought on my mind when we finally settled down to sleep.

ooOoo

We were woken up the next morning by a malevolent pulse of chakra. Ino had rolled to her feet with a kunai in hand almost before we were awake, and she glared at Sakon when she realized the chakra had come from the barrel. The corner of his mouth quirked up in a grin, and Ino snorted in response. I had a feeling that, even riding in her head, I had missed half of a conversation.

Ino turned her gaze back to the barrel while I occupied myself with my morning ritual of checking to see if the seal keeping me in place had loosened overnight. It didn't take long to confirm that Ino's control over my body was as complete as ever, and I found myself watching the barrel along with everybody else.

The chakra emanating from the barrel dropped down to nothing, then sprang back to a level slightly higher than before. It dropped down and bounced back again, and again, like some kind of inhuman heartbeat. Nobody on the Sound team reacted like this was anything out of the ordinary.

After a minute of the pulsing, the barrel cracked down the middle and a cloud of smoke poured out. I heard Sasuke before I saw him as a peal of laughter rang out from the middle of the smoke.

"The power of the curse seal," Sasuke said, staring at his hands as the smoke finally thinned enough for him to come into view. "It's under my control, now."

Looking at him, I found it hard to disagree. His upper body was covered with the markings of the seal, but where before they had been wild and unsettlingly alien, now they marched across his body in orderly geometric patterns. The same foreign chakra was pouring out of the seal, but that too felt different. The one time I had felt it before it had been like a wild animal, ready to lash out at anybody nearby; now it was like a trained guard dog, no less deadly but willing to wait for Sasuke's direction before striking.

"With this power, I can fulfill my ambition," Sasuke continued, not even looking at the rest of us. "With this power-"

Ino stepped forward and there was a flash of light and a rush of information that overwhelmed my senses. By the time I could make out heads or tails of what was going on Sasuke was on the ground, the markings of the curse seal retracted back into the seal itself and a small burn mark on his flesh just beneath the seal. Ino stood over him with her hand outstretched, as though she had just finished a knife hand strike.

"Settle down there," Ino said. "All the power in the world won't do you any good until you learn how to use it."

Sasuke was staring up at us in shock, rubbing at the burn mark with his opposite hand. "That attack..."

"It turns out the Jyuuken isn't too hard to figure out when you can see what you're doing," Ino said, and I finally figured out what had happened. That rush of information had come from her activation of the Byakugan. I also knew she was lying-learning to interpret the sights provided by the Byakugan was itself no easy task, and becoming proficient enough to use it at combat speeds must have been grueling. Ino betrayed none of this in her voice, though, as she smiled and tapped the forehead protector over her eye. "What, did you think I just wanted to look cool like sensei?"

A betrayed look flashed across Sasuke's face, and my heart dropped as I realized what he must be thinking. He grew up in the heart of the Uchiha clan; the fear of having his eyes stolen must have been driven into him at a young age. A fear that only would have been amplified when the rest of his clan was murdered, making the Sharingan impossibly rare and impossibly valuable. To see someone he thought of as a friend resort to organ theft, even if it was from a clan not his own, must have come as a huge shock.

Ino laughed. I wasn't sure if she didn't share my epiphany or my feelings of sympathy.

"If you're expecting your comrades to be finicky about the pursuit of power, you're joining the wrong village," Ino said. "You're not the only one with ambitions, you know."

I was right there with Sasuke in wondering what Ino's ambitions were. She said she wanted what was best for me, but she never gave me a minute of control of my body. She also said she wanted to win Sasuke's heart, but she sure wasn't treating him very nicely.

Before Sasuke could say anything in reply, Kidomaru hissed out a warning. Ino spun around in alarm, activating the Byakugan again. I tried to make sense out of what I was seeing, but I couldn't make out anything more than a whirling mass of lines and dots surrounding us before she returned to normal vision. Apparently Ino had liked what she saw, as she fell into a relaxed stance before she had even finished turning to face the rest of the group.

"Don't worry," Ino said, waving her hand dismissively. "It's not a hunter team coming after us. It's an academy field trip."

"Hey now," a familiar voice rang out, as Shikamaru stepped into the clearing. He sounded like he would have been offended if it weren't too much effort. "You're only about three months older than us, if I remember right."

Trailing behind him were Neji Hyuuga, Choji Akamichi, and Kiba Inuzaka. Kiba had his puppy trailing along behind him; if I had to guess I would credit the dog's nose for allowing the team to track us down. The other boys took up position behind Shikamaru, clearly indicating that he was in charge of the team. A moment later Naruto came bounding into the clearing. He was almost bursting with the need to say something, but he subsided at a glare from Shikamaru.

I was torn: it was good to see all of my old friends and comrades, but I was afraid I was about to watch myself get into a deathmatch with them all.

"Sure, but I know why I'm here," Ino said, which put her one up on me. "Lord Orochimaru took his time putting a team together and I won the top spot. How did the Hokage settle on you guys, exactly?"

"We may be a little young, but the Hokage thought we were the best team available," Shikamaru replied, not showing any visible change in emotion in response to Ino's barb.

"How lucky for us that there wasn't somebody more experienced on hand," Ino said, her voice saccharine sweet.

Shikamaru flinched back as he caught her implication, but then shook his head. "That's a pretty cheap trick, acting like every lucky break is part of your master plan."

For all that Ino was chatting as casually as she would at the marketplace, she had kept the Byakugan activated from the moment Shikamaru had spoken. It was actually helping me to understand better how the eye worked-I could see Shikamaru's face with my normal vision, while the Byakugan made visible a network of glowing points and flowing lines throughout his body that must have been his chakra network. It was hard to apply that knowledge to the area in my vision that was only filled in by the Byakugan, and I don't know what Ino was seeing. I did notice that my left hand, which rested casually out of sight of the Konoha team, was keeping up a steady stream of hand signals that would be visible to the Sound Four.

Ino gave no indication of this silent conversation as she kept up her banter with Shikamaru.

"You know, Lord Orochimaru did manage to kill the Kazekage and the Hokage. What do you think happens when he plans an extraction? Call it luck if you like, that's not even the best part," Ino said, leaning forward as if she was about to impart a juicy piece of gossip. "Tell me, what do you think Tsunade thought would happen if you did catch up with us?"

"Like I said, she thought we could handle the mission," Shikamaru replied.

"Against the kind of heavy hitters Orochimaru would send on a mission like this?" Ino said, layering an excessive level of incredulity into my voice. "Give your Hokage a little more credit. Tsunade didn't send you out here to succeed; she sent you to die."

That got a rise out of the boys. All of them bristled, and Naruto looked ready to jump forward and defend the Hokage's honor, but he settled down when Kiba rested a hand on his shoulder. I had to wonder what their plan was

"That doesn't even make any sense," Shikamaru said. "It doesn't do the village any good to waste the lives of its ninja."

"Oh, she's hoping to get something out of it. Maybe you'll slow us down, give the rest of Konoha's forces a chance to track us down," Ino said, waving an arm dismissively. "What do you think your lives are worth, really, compared to Konoha's monopoly on the Sharingan?"

"You seem a little bitter about your old village," Shikamaru observed.

Ino laughed, as I kept trying to puzzle out what I was seeing. I guessed that the network of faintly glowing lines trailing between the trees were Kidomaru's webbing; a technique like that had to be infused with chakra in order to work the way it did. Just on the edge of my vision I thought I saw what might be a human shaped mass of chakra climbing a tree behind our team.

Was this whole conversation just a distraction so that they could get their teammate in position to ambush us? Ino could see everything I could see, and she didn't seem to be reacting, which made me think I still had a lot to figure out about the Byakugan.

"Oh, I don't think our Kage would do any different. We're all just tools here," Ino said, her cheerful voice at odds with her dour message. "The difference is that Orochimaru isn't in a position where he has to sacrifice his pawns in a desperate attempt to prevent a disaster. Are you really happy to be the chips that the Legendary Sucker has pushed into the center of the table?"

Shikamaru rocked back on his heels, and I saw a flicker of uncertainty run through the Konoha team. Ino was quick to press her advantage.

"Really, you guys ought to think about joining the winning team here," she said. "Orochimaru has an eye for talent, and it would be a shame for your potential to be snuffed out so early."

The look of uncertainty passed from Shikamaru's face as he visibly steeled himself. "I may not be much of a ninja, but I'm not going to abandon my village just like that."

"It's adorable how you say that as if the village wouldn't throw away your lives, just like that," Ino said, snapping her fingers, then shrugged. "Tell you what, since we used to be friends: turn around right now and leave, and I'll let you walk away. We've already taken longer on this conversation than you could have expected to survive in a fight, so you can count it as a successful mission."

Shikamaru hesitated. The rest of his squad was eyeing the Oto team, and I tried to follow along with what they were thinking. The whole squad had lined up a step behind Ino; even Sasuke had fallen into line as though he was ready to fight his former comrades. Jirobu and Kidomaru cut particularly intimidating figures, and just standing next to them with confidence suggested that Tayuya and Sakon were more dangerous than they first appeared. They hadn't needed to say a word to communicate the message that they were experienced fighters who would kill without hesitation.

None of the Konoha team members looked eager to start fighting-other than Naruto, none of them particularly looked like they wanted to be here right now. It looked like Shikamaru was about to come to a decision when my former teammate could hold his silence no longer.

"You keep talking like we're gonna lose, because we're just kids. But so what? The Golden Flash was a kid. So was the God of Shinobi. We're Konoha ninja, just like them," Naruto was gesturing wildly, caught up in what he was saying. Around him, I could see his teammates starting to stand up a litle straighter. "We have the will of fire, just like them! We're not going to walk away from our teammates, even if what they need protection from is themselves."

Shikamaru nodded, as if that was what he had planned all along. "He's right. Every legend has to start somewhere. Besides, we might be a little young, but I think we will surprise you a little."

"Maybe," Ino said, shrugging. "One thing that's not a surprise though: there are actually only a couple of good spots to attack this clearing from long range."

On her signal, Kidomaru reached down with his bottom-most left hand and sent a flash of chakra out along his webbing. A net of strands fell down on top of the mass of dots that I had marked as the person responsible for the Konoha team's surprise attack. The web was dotted with a few glowing sigils that took me a moment to decipher-seeing the mark made out of chakra was a little different than seeing it on ink and paper-but I had seen enough explosive tags to recognize the seal that powered them.

To their credit, the doomed ninja responded by launching an all out attack. I could only vaguely make out the storm of weaponry heading our way, since the weapons didn't carry any chakra, but the explosive tags that were attached to many of them looked like a meteor shower. I very much wanted to get out of the way; Ino did too, and I felt her try to jump to a resounding lack of success.

She looked down and I saw a thin line of shadow connecting my shadow to Shikamaru's. I hadn't realized that he could stretch his shadow so far or so fast. When she looked up she locked eyes with Shikamaru. He was staring at us intently, his expression oddly calm. Even as Jirobu roared out a battle cry and charged forward, the serene smile on his face didn't falter.

Then Tayuya acted. She performed some kind of summoning technique and I found myself suddenly standing in the shade. When Ino glanced around I saw that I was surrounded by three oddly misshapen creatures. They looked like the kind of demons you see in folk plays, if those demons were twice the height of a normal human and stitched together out of corpses. They smelled like rotting meat, but as they absorbed the impact of the incoming weaponry without any visible reaction (other than losing the mass blown off by the exploding tags), I had never seen anything more beautiful.

In the meantime, Choji had charged forward and intercepted Jirobu, already activating his multi-size technique. Jirobu bowled the still-growing boy over, sending him rolling back into Shikamaru and finally breaking the shadow link. Ino was about to leap into the fray when Tayuya stopped her with a hand on my shoulder.

"You should take the pretty boy and go," Tayuya said. "We can handle this trash."

"And what about any backup that's on the way?" Ino asked.

"Don't worry, we'll be able to slip away while they try to catch up with the Uchiha," Tayuya said, before her expression softened. "Look, I don't think you've been working for Lord Orochimaru for long enough to expect you to kill all your old friends just yet."

"Tayuya..." Ino said, searching for the right words. "Thanks."

The two of them shared a look that I couldn't decipher. Some final message passed between them before Ino turned away, grabbed Sasuke by the arm, and leapt off into the woods.

ooOoo

Ino and Sasuke raced through the forest side by side, all attempts at stealth or misdirection abandoned. It was easy enough to understand why: every patrolling ninja in the area was going to be drawn to the big fight going on behind us, Tayuya's words to the contrary notwithstanding. I wondered what had prompted such a bout of self sacrifice. It didn't seem consistent with the whole survival of the fittest philosophy Otogakure usually lived by.

That wasn't the only question on my mind. I had a whole host of questions for Sasuke. What was he thinking, abandoning the village like this? What did he think about Ino's crazy act in his bedroom the night before? Why wasn't Shikamaru surprised to see me alive and in charge of an enemy squad? Did he hate me now for wielding a stolen Byakugan?

None of these questions seemed to be bothering Ino. She and Sasuke maintained a silence that was driving me crazy, but apparently the two of them found it comfortable. They made good time, running without interruption as the trees thinned out around us. The river valley that marked the edge of Konoha's influence had just come into view when a voice called out from behind us.

"Hey! Don't think you can get away from me so easily!"

Ino spun around. I recognized Naruto just as I saw a kunai sprout out of his eye; I had only an instant to realize that the weapon had come from my outstretched hand and feel a sense of horror before he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"Hmph," Ino said, shaking her head. "I'll stay back and take care of this. You just keep going and you'll reach Oto controlled territory soon enough."

Sasuke just glared at me, obviously unhappy at being left out of all the fighting. I felt my mouth stretch into an amused smile.

"Trust me, you don't want to start your work with Orochimaru by showing up late," Ino said. "He's going to work hard to make you as strong as you can be, but he's not the kind of guy who lets the little things slide. He's kind of the opposite of sensei that way."

Sasuke grunted but, after another hard look, he turned to continue on the way to Oto. Ino kept her eyes on the path behind us as a familiar orange-clad form emerged from the trees.

"Sakura," Naruto said, unusually solemn. "This mission is to retrieve Sasuke, but I want to bring you home too."

Ino had adopted a casual posture, but she activated the Byakugan before she replied. Even with my limited understanding of how it worked I could see the tenketsu of a team of clones moving to surround us, using the scattered trees and rock formations to mask their approach.

"That sounds so sweet," Ino said, smiling falsely. "If only you weren't the reason I had to leave."

"What are you talking about?" Naruto asked, confused. I didn't know what she was talking about any more than he did, so I was just as eager to hear what she had to say.

"I checked the medical file," Ino said. "It was your complaint to Kakashi that got things rolling with the Konoha bureaucracy. They were ready to commit me and, well, I decided I'd rather join up with another village than spend the rest of my life locked up."

"Sakura," Naruto began, looking stricken. "I didn't know-I didn't mean-"

"Whether or not you mean for your actions to have consequences, they still do," Ino interrupted. "The same way you talked Shikamaru into the fight that's going to kill him."

Naruto had fallen back on his heels a bit in he face of Ino's aggressive attitude, but he didn't stay down for long.

"You know, I think since you left the village you've forgotten how strong Konoha shinobi can be," Naruto said. "Shikamaru can take care of himself... and you don't think you're talking to the real me right now, do you?"

"Obviously not," Ino said, rolling my uncovered eye, before she turned and punched out towards one of the boulders that dotted the clearing. There was an odd sort of humming sound that reminded me of Dosu's resonator, and the rock exploded. Two clones were peppered with rock shards and dispersed, while what was apparently the real Naruto was sent tumbling across the ground. He stood, bleeding from a cut on his cheek, and summoned another group of clones that charged forward.

Ino swung my arm wide, sending a blade of air across the clearing that dispersed the oncoming clones. She pulled a kunai out of my pouch and flipped it over her shoulder, taking out the clone that she had been talking to before. With the clones gone, Ino advanced on Naruto. He seemed to welcome her choice to close to taijutsu range.

"I'm not underestimating you, Naruto," Ino said, cracking her knuckles. "I know you're stronger than you look, and you can be sneaky when you want to. I know you never get tired and never quit. I know what you can do; I just know that I can beat you."

Naruto's taijutsu was as sloppy as I remembered. He opened up with a wild haymaker that was easily dodged and left his ribs vulnerable. The difference between this fight and the spars I had had with Naruto in the past was the strength Ino brought to the table. Where before Naruto had always been able to bull through my attacks to secure a victory, when Ino peppered his ribs with a quick combination it was obvious that he felt it.

He was more cautious after the initial exchange but, just as he did with everything else in life, he overdid it. Ino easily batted aside his tentative attacks, and it wasn't long before Naruto lost his patience and moved in for an all out attack. Ino deflected away his roundhouse kick, and the follow up straight right was nowhere near making contact. This time she locked up his outstretched arm and stepped forward, putting unbearable pressure on his shoulder. It dislocated with a pop.

Naruto gave a cry of pain and Ino released him with a shove. He stumbled and fell on his back, cradling his injured arm and staring up at Ino in shock. She crouched down and eyed him contemplatively.

"Just think, you've been talking your friends into these kinds of situations and they don't even have the red chakra to fall back on," Ino said. "Without that trump card, you'd be dead twice over by now."

"What happened to you?" Naruto asked, his face scrunched up in confusion. "You didn't used to be like this in the Academy."

It suddenly struck me that, out of everybody I had met so far, Naruto was the only one who had noticed anything was wrong. Maybe he wasn't as dumb as he looked. Or maybe everybody else just assumed that you left your softer feelings behind when you put on your headband.

"What happened to me?" Ino echoed back. "I grew up. It might happen to you someday, if you live that long."

"No, I don't think that's it. Before, sometimes you could be mean... but you were never cruel," Naruto struggled to his feet using only his good arm, then spread his hands wide. "Come back to the village, Sakura. I can help you be you again."

That really set Ino off. She activated the Byakugan once more as she darted forward, penetrating his defenses with ease and hitting him with Jyuuken strikes near his good shoulder and the top of both thighs. Naruto stumbled and fell flat on his back, yelping as he put pressure on his bad arm. I felt my mouth twist into a vicious smile as she lifted her forehead protector to reveal what lay beneath.

"All that changed is that I realized I needed to be a person who could succeed as a ninja, not a scared little girl for you to protect," Ino said. "Although this particular situation is really your fault. If you hadn't encouraged Hinata, she never would have been in the hospital under such heavy sedation; and if you hadn't ratted me out, I never would have been wandering around the hospital looking for my ticket to a new village."

Naruto was staring at me with a blank expression on his face. A thin mist of red chakra was visible to my natural eye, as was the slight lengthening of Naruto's canines and the deepening of the whisker marks on his cheeks. The Byakugan revealed that red chakra was circulating through his system, undoing the blocks that Ino had left in place.

"That belongs to Hinata!" Naruto growled, reaching over and wrenching his shoulder back into its socket. "You give it back, now!"

Naruto leapt up, apparently as ready to fight as ever, and charged forward. He passed five feet to my right and punched one of the trees that dotted the clearing, tearing a chunk of bark clean off. Ino chuckled before hopping up to take a seat on a nearby rock.

"Finallly!" Ino said, though I wasn't sure if it was to herself or to me. "Funny it would be Hinata that set him off. I wonder if they started dating. Falling in love while he helps nurse her back to health-how romantic!"

Naruto had continued his enthusiastic assault on an imaginary opponent while Ino talked, and I belatedly realized that he was under some kind of genjutsu. I hadn't kept track of all of the chakra Ino had been expending, but she was obviously in control of what he was seeing right now. For all of the power that Naruto could draw on with the red chakra, it didn't make him any smarter.

As he ran past us, delivering an axe kick that gouged a decent size crater out of the ground, Ino kicked out and sent a streamer of flame in his direction. The flames surrounded him, but when they dissipated it was clear that the red chakra had shielded him from any ill effects.

"Impressive offense and defense," Ino commented. "That seal on his stomach is obviously a masterwork, but it looks like it's supposed to hold power back, not hand it over."

I would have to take her word on that. I could tell that the seal-glowing blue in the vision of the Byakugan-was tremendously complex, something that I could study for a lifetime without completely understanding it, but I couldn't make out what it was for at all.

Ino's attitude seemed familiar to me somehow, but it wasn't until Naruto was making his second attack run through the clearing that it hit me. She was looking at him the same way she had examined the bodies of the Sound genin team in the Forest of Death. She wanted to figure out the red chakra and take its power for herself.

I renewed my struggle for control of my body, to no avail. For all of the horrible things Ino had done with my body, at least she hadn't killed any of my friends. I desperately didn't want that to change now, but my efforts to avert the tragedy I saw coming failed to even move a finger.

Naruto seized my attention as he let out another roar, and the seal on his stomach visibly changed. A torrent of red chakra thickened the haze that surrounded his body, and this time when he punched a tree he took out enough of its trunk that it collapsed. The Byakugan revealed that an otherwise invisible shroud of chakra formed around his head, taking on an animalistic shape that slowly resolved into a nightmarish parody of a fox.

"So, the Kyuubi no Kitsune wasn't as dead as they told us," Ino spoke while I was still trying to rationalize away what I had seen. "No wonder he was always so confident, with that kind of power backing him up."

Ino hopped down off of the rock and took a comfortable ready stance.

"I have to admit, I'm not comfortable trying to seal something like that into myself on the fly. Still, though, I can't just leave this idiot wandering around the forest," Ino said, gathering chakra in my right hand. "Besides, everybody says that the Kyuubi is an unstoppable force of destruction. I'm curious to see if that's still true when you seal it into the class clown."

There was an odd popping sensation of displaced chakra, and Naruto's head snapped around to stare straight at me. He snarled, a disturbing expression only amplified by the matching expression on the fox surrounding his face. He charged straight at us, his speed greatly enhanced by the red chakra but his predictable line of attack just the same as ever.

Ino gathered the chakra in my hand into a jyuuken attack, but different from the ones she had been using. Usually a jyuuken strike used a pinprick of chakra to disable a carefully selected portion of the opponent's chakra system without using too much of your own. What Ino built looked more like a kunai-sized spike of chakra coming out of my palm, and I could feel the drain it was putting on my chakra reserves.

Ino sidestepped Naruto's attack, stepping in close to slam her palm towards his heart. The fox-head construct opened its mouth in a silent howl of pain before disappearing in a puff of chakra, and the red chakra surrounding Naruto began to draw back from his body. In the blink of an eye it had retreated from covering his whole body to covering just his chest, then an area the size of a dinner plate. The spike of chakra Ino used to attack had made it halfway through the red chakra in the first moment of contact, but her progress slowed as Naruto's defense retracted and reinforced the area under attack. It had shrunk down to the size of a single ryo coin when her attack finally ground to a halt, nearly touching the fabric of Naruto's shirt.

Naruto snarled, and Ino looked up from the progress of her strike to see that he had launched a haymaker that, with the extra power provided by the Kyuubi, was liable to take my head off if it connected. She broke off the attack and bent backwards at the waste, allowing Naruto's fist to fly by overhead.

As soon as she had withdrawn her attack, the fox shroud snapped back into place around Naruto. At the same time that she bent back, a tail of chakra extruded itself from the chakra cloak to swipe at us. Ino bent back even further, more than I thought was possible, and the tail only caught us with a glancing blow on the shoulder.

Unfortunately, even a glancing blow from the Kyuubi is not something most ninja can withstand. I was sent tumbling across the battlefield, my vision filled with a crazy topsy-turvy view of sky, ground, sky, and ground before I my head crashed into something solid and mercifully sent me into unconsciousness.

ooOoo

When I woke up, it felt like my shoulder was on fire. I was dimly aware of some other aches and pains, but the overriding pain in my shoulder made them easy to disregard as I reached over and grabbed at the wound, trying to ease the pain somehow through bodily contact. It didn't help.

The pain was so severe, in fact, that it took me a moment to notice that I was fully in control of my body once more. I looked down and saw that the wound on my shoulder traced the spot that had been marked by Ino's seal, a seal that had apparently been burned out by the Kyuubi's chakra.

I could still feel the oppressive pressure of the red chakra coming from somewhere nearby. When I managed to drag my attention away from the pain in my arm and look up, it felt as if my heart stopped. Sasuke, his form warped by the cursed seal, was standing at one edge of the clearing with the crackling lightning of sensei's technique dancing around his arm. He was facing Naruto, whose appearance was even more feral than it had been at the end of his fight with Ino. Naruto was holding a swirling ball of chakra in the palm of his hand that practically radiated a sense of danger.

What could I do? All of Ino's machinations, her cold pursuit of her (and possibly my) best interest, had led to this: my two closest friends and teammates, squaring off and ready to kill each other. For a precious few seconds I could do nothing but panic.

The answer came to me in a moment of clarity. If I'd gotten into this mess through intelligent, selfish choices, maybe it was time to do something a little stupid and unselfish. I activated the seal Ino had left on my arm granting a termporary burst of speed and leapt into motion as Sasuke and Naruto started to charge towards each other.

Using the seal was pretty amazing. I had thought it was impressive before, but to be able to control my body while moving and thinking at such speeds was a whole new level. Sasuke and Naruto seemed to be moving in slow motion as I covered the distance between us in leaps and bounds. I knew I only had a couple of seconds under the seal's influence, I had to make this count.

I angled myself towards Sasuke and launched into his path. I saw him react as the Sharingan informed him that he had an obstacle to avoid, but I hadn't given him enough space to react. The lightning chakra surrounding his hand punched through the bones of my sternum as though it offered no more resistance than a training double, time seeming to run at double speed as the benefits granted by the seal wore off.

For a second time I was sent into a wild tumble, this time with a hole punched through my vital organs. When I stopped I found Sasuke crouched above me; while my body was still impaled by his right arm, he had used his left arm to shield me from the worst of the impact of hitting the ground, and we wound up in a parody of a lovers' embrace.

It was strange, it didn't hurt as much as I expected. I wasn't sure if it was some upgrade Ino had installed-I could feel some kind of sealworktrying to repair my internal injuries, though it was woefully inadequate for the job-or if my body was just giving up, realizing that pain was hardly necessary at this juncture.

Sasuke shifted, starting to pull back his right arm, and all of the pain that I was expecting slammed into me full force. I must have made some kind of noise, because he stilled and the pain receded into background noise once again.

"Sakura," Sasuke began, then paused. He had released the curse seal and reverted to a more human appearance, but his Sharingan was still active. I felt like he could see right through my eyes to the thoughts in my head, until he spoke again. "Sakura, why?"

It was a good question. I hadn't really put a lot of thought into this plan, and I certainly hadn't expected to have the chance to explain myself afterwards. So I was a little surprised to find an answer on the tip of my tongue.

"You and Naruto fighting... it's wrong." Even just thinking of the two of them, standing ready to attack each other with lethal force, was enough to send a shudder down my spine.

Sasuke shook his head in reflexive denial. "I have to leave the village to be strong. I have to fight Naruto to leave the village."

"No, you're-" I was interrupted by a coughing fit, which sent white hot flashes of pain through my system as my insides were moved around in ways that really weren't meant to happen. I gave up the attempt to talk-Sasuke would find his strength on his own, probably-and reached my hand up towards his face.

My strength gave out before it was more than halfway to him, but Sasuke caught my falling hand by the wrist and brought it up so that I could rub his cheek, the same way I had so long ago in the Forest of Death.

It was... nice. I did my best to hold on to that sensation of peace as my vision started to dim around the edges. The last thing I noticed before my vision faded to black was Sasuke's eyes. I had always found the Sharingan slightly hypnotic, and the pinwheel shape forming in place of his pupil just enhanced the effect.

ooOoo 


End file.
